With hard drives in short supply, Seagate and Western Digital slash warranties

With hard drive shortages owing to recent flooding in Thailand affecting the PC industry, what should disk manufacturers do in addition to profit from higher prices? Why, cut warranty lengths, too.

Taking full advantage of the supply/demand imbalance, Seagate and Western Digital have announced that warranties for new drives are being reduced. In Seagate's case, Barracuda XT and Momentus XT drives will now come with 3-year warranties, instead of 5-year ones, and non-XT Barracuda and Momentus drives will now be covered for just a year instead of 3 years. The company says the shift will start on drives shipped starting on December 31 and will not impact retail products.

As for Western Digital, it will be slashing warranties for Caviar Blue and Green drives and Scorpio Blue drives from three years to two. This change will go into affect with shipments starting January 2, and apparently will not impact external drives or Caviar and Scorpio Black drives. WD says it will start offering extended warranty options for drives in the future -- for an additional price, of course.

[Via The Register]