[conspire] Reliable 1.5TB SATA drives?

[Tony Godshall]

> .... I thought that seagate
> had reduced it's consumer warranty back to 3 years, so I verified.  No,
> you are right and I am wrong... seagate has 5 year warranties on it's
> baracuda, even the slow 5900rpm product.
>
> The interesting thing I found, though, was that western digital /also/
> has 5 year warranties, at least on it's 'black' product  (I think all the
> wd drives I've used have either been re3 or 'black')
> http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=733
...

It's really odd.  You walk down the aisle of Fry's and read the
warranties on the boxes:  One brand has drives from one to five years.
 Another from one to three.  I used to think the external USB drives
didn't exceed a year but lately I got an 888GB Seagate Freeagent Go[1]
with a five-year warranty.

Bottom line: Don't assume a brand, or even a line, has a warranty of a
certain length- read the bottom of the box.  I think the warranty wars
have given way to a strategies more like the airlines capacity
pricing.  They shift the prices and the packaging and the warranties
around and see what they can get people to pay for a black package, a
recycled package, a bamboo package, etc., etc.

And yes, it's about the data, not the drive.  That part's not B.S.
But the warranty does serve as a reasonable proxy to drive life if
only because it costs the manufacturer to replace defective drives.

Tony


[1]  USB-powered, no less! Haven't bothered to replace the hard drive
in my laptop- just running off USB.