Question Western Digital tried to pull a fast one

[tcsenter]

I purchased new a retail packaged Western Digital Green SN350 960GB NVMe SSD last year through the EGG (fulfilled by third party) and promptly registered it. Received a notice last week that my warranty would expire within 60 days. Warranty on product (retail) packaging is 3 years, according to the terms in the little insert, begins on the date of purchase but they appeared to be going from date of manufacture.

I contacted, created a support ticket and had to upload photos of product package, drive label with serial, warranty insert, and invoice. After a few days, received:

Please allow me to inform you that the warranty of your drive WD Green SN350 SSD with serial number (clipped) has been successfully updated and it is under warranty till 10/29/2026.

So to its credit WD made things right, but why should I have had to do it? What if I missed the notice? I guess I should be glad they are even notifying in advance. I don't like these kinds of 'system oversights'. I input all that stuff when I registered it, including IIRC uploaded the proof of purchase.

 

[Shmee]

Yikes that is a bit concerning. I wonder what is going on.

 

[fzabkar]

When you register a product, do you need to supply supporting documentation? If not, then how does WD know when you actually purchased the drive? AIUI, the default warranty period is the advertised warranty period plus 1 month, starting from the date of manufacture.

 

[tcsenter]

It appears to be optional, doesn't have the (*) required information but I know I provided it when I registered last year. And for almost all retail channel products, warranty begin from date of purchase if through an authorized reseller.

 

[mikeymikec]

From experience I think this is really common practice and isn't necessarily a sign of malice - manufacturer makes item on date X, then sells it to supply channels. Beyond that they don't know when it was actually purchased by say an end user so by default they rely on the manufacturer date.

I've had a few conversations with manufacturers over the years where they say it's out of warranty, I beg to differ, they ask for a receipt, they then say it's not out of warranty.

 

[mindless1]

From experience I think this is really common practice and isn't necessarily a sign of malice - manufacturer makes item on date X, then sells it to supply channels. Beyond that they don't know when it was actually purchased by say an end user so by default they rely on the manufacturer date.

I've had a few conversations with manufacturers over the years where they say it's out of warranty, I beg to differ, they ask for a receipt, they then say it's not out of warranty.

But "promptly registered it", usually means that you supply the purchase date?

 

[tcsenter]

But "promptly registered it", usually means that you supply the purchase date?

Purchase date is required info for registration of Western Digital products. Been that way for at least a few years now.

 

[mikeymikec]

But "promptly registered it", usually means that you supply the purchase date?

I've never registered a product with the manufacturer (except to then immediately apply for an RMA). Do they typically ask for proof of purchase in a registration?

 

[ssokolow]

I've never registered a product with the manufacturer (except to then immediately apply for an RMA). Do they typically ask for proof of purchase in a registration?

It varies.

Western Digital has actually been the standard I held up to other manufacturers I've had to interact with for warranty return. They ask for everything they might want to know for an RMA up-front when you register which makes it a great way to avoid the risk of misplacing a receipt/invoice, they give you a nice clear readout of registered products with how much warranty is left, their returns process is simple, and I've never had a problem. (I'm a bit of a data-hoarder and also handle any needed RMA for less technical family members, so the die gets rolled a fair bit.)

Compare APC where, to prove my UPSes with prematurely dying batteries (two units from the same production run) were still in warranty, I had to go to Costco and get them to print out a replacement purchase record because APC didn't ask for a scan/photo of it during the registration process and Costco's web UI for it only goes back two years.

Heck, when it came time to finally upgrade to a PC with an M.2 socket and support for booting off NVMe instead of spending that money on more hard drives, I went WD Black because I was seeing others saying their RMA process for Canadian buyers is much better than Samsung's.

 

[mikeymikec]

Interesting. I haven't had any trouble with Samsung (two SSD RMAs at least, IIRC). WD however back in around 2011, I returned a WD Black that died in 6 months (so 4.5 years left on the warranty), and they issued me a replacement WD Black with *6 months* warranty.

Logitech certainly was my gold standard though I don't know if it's still their policy - I had an MX700 mouse die within the 5-year warranty, they refunded me the full cost of the mouse so I bought a MX1000, which died within its 5-year warranty, which they fully refunded, then I bought a MX Revolution which lasted me more than ten years, one battery replacement, opened it a few times to clean out the crap I was sad when that mouse died

 

[ssokolow]

Interesting. I haven't had any trouble with Samsung (two SSD RMAs at least, IIRC). WD however back in around 2011, I returned a WD Black that died in 6 months (so 4.5 years left on the warranty), and they issued me a replacement WD Black with *6 months* warranty.

Logitech certainly was my gold standard though I don't know if it's still their policy - I had an MX700 mouse die within the 5-year warranty, they refunded me the full cost of the mouse so I bought a MX1000, which died within its 5-year warranty, which they fully refunded, then I bought a MX Revolution which lasted me more than ten years, one battery replacement, opened it a few times to clean out the crap I was sad when that mouse died

These days, I generally consider Logitech to be low-quality junk.

I have a G3 from 2007 that's still going strong aside from needing to eBay a replacement scroll wheel because the rubber was starting to break down, probably accelerated by atmospheric alcohol vapor from COVID, but I also have two G203 Prodigy mice (one bought a few years ago, one replacement) so I could keep the G3 as a spare since I don't like how hard it is to find a good wired, simple-shape mouse with a laser sensor for my solid-white hard-top SHL Systemhouse mousepad and two extra buttons for switching virtual desktops.

One of them was a "just keep it" when I filed a warranty replacement claim after maybe a year because the buttons and scroll-wheel sensor were getting flaky. The second lasted an additional year or two before I had to open it, use a pin to open the Chinese-made microswitches, and use DeoxIT to deoxidize the contacts and apply the protective coating that the G3's Japanese-made microswiches apparently got at the factory.

(One of these days, I'll try spraying some DeoxIT into the other one's encoder to see if that fixes it. If not, time for desoldering braid and a replacement encoder module from eBay.)

It's a shame. It's a brand I'm nostalgic about from their 90s heyday.

 

[mikeymikec]

I hope not, I bought an MX Master 3S to replace the MXR with They didn't ask for my MX700/MX1000 back either.

Higher-end Logitech mice helped fix my RSI twenty years ago so I stick with similar-shape mice with what worked for me back then.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Since you bought from what is basically Temu for tech, you probably got a new old stock drive or one that is not the same as what the label says (ex: they may have slapped a label on an older drive or even a refurb). It may have been sitting for years. Pretty sure the warranty is based on date of manufacture and not date of registration. I've never registered a drive before so I'm not sure how that works, is it suppose to extend the warranty?

 

[ssokolow]

Since you bought from what is basically Temu for tech, you probably got a new old stock drive or one that is not the same as what the label says (ex: they may have slapped a label on an older drive or even a refurb). It may have been sitting for years. Pretty sure the warranty is based on date of manufacture and not date of registration. I've never registered a drive before so I'm not sure how that works, is it suppose to extend the warranty?

Our family has only ever bought "Sold by Amazon.ca, Fulfilled by Amazon.ca", "Sold by Newegg", Retail from Costco, or sold directly by Western Digital but, in those circumstances at least, yes, registering the drive updates the warranty period they have on file from "date of manufacture" to "date of purchase".

That's why they want you to submit a file (eg. Amazon.ca invoice PDF) as proof of date of purchase when registering.