SHARE
Facebook X Pinterest WhatsApp

Seagate Ups Drive Warranties To 5 Years

Seagate Technology has increased the warranty of almost all of its hard drives to five years, reversing a trend toward shorter-period warranties. The warranties will apply to all of Seagate’s internal desktop, mobile, and enterprise hard drives that buyers purchase today, excluding external drives, Seagate executives said. For the past year, the warranties on hard […]

Written By
thumbnail Mark Hachman
Mark Hachman
Jul 26, 2004
Channel Insider content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

Seagate Technology has increased the warranty of almost all of its hard drives to five years, reversing a trend toward shorter-period warranties.

The warranties will apply to all of Seagate’s internal desktop, mobile, and enterprise hard drives that buyers purchase today, excluding external drives, Seagate executives said.

For the past year, the warranties on hard drives have actually declined, while at the same time the drives’ larger capacities have held more and more data. Meanwhile, companies like IBM have received criticism for placing limitations on the usage of drives like the DeskStar 120GXP, which was only rated for eight consecutive hours of operation per day. Hitachi took over control of IBM’s disk-drive assets in 2002.

“I think the reason we’re doing it – well, there’s a couple of reasons, actually,” said Joe Cousins, senior director of global channel marketing at Seagate. “We’re doing a pretty good job reaching out to customers, and evaluating their needs… also, Seagate’s warranty of five years rather than one to three years is also a statement of our competence, quality, and reliability investments.”

The extended warranty will match the expected “service life” of the drive, which is also five years, Cousins said. “Service life” refers to the period in which the drive is actually used, before it becomes too small or too slow for a user and is discarded.

The drive maker will also honor the five-year warranty on older models that may be sitting on store shelves, a Seagate representative said, although the warranty was designed to be applied to drives shipping to distributors after June 1.

Previously, Seagate’s warranties covered periods of between one and three years, the industry standard. Rival Maxtor, for example, generally certifies its hard drives for a year of service, with a three-year warranty applied to its latest DiamondMax and MaxLine hard drives. However, Maxtor’s Atlas SCSI drives also carry the five-year warranty.

Western Digital’s warranty program is a bit more restrictive than Maxtor’s, as the company applies a one-year warranties to the Protege, Caviar , and Caviar SE retail drives; Caviar SE drives sold as a “bare drive” receive a three-year warranty. WD’s Raptor enterprise drives receive a five-year warranty. WD customers can also extend the warranty on drives bought at retail for an additional two years by paying a $14.95 fee.

For Seagate and other drive markers, the exception to the increased warranty status will be external drives, which are subject to the jars and jolts that drives protected by a PC chassis are not. Those drives will still have a warranty period of one year.

“That’s more of a consumer appliance, where expectations are a little different,” Cousins said.

Recommended for you...

Report: Security Teams are Drowning in Alerts, Turning to AI
Jordan Smith
Sep 12, 2025
Mitel Appoints Mike Robinson as CEO
Jordan Smith
Sep 11, 2025
Cynomi Adds Third-Party Risk Management Module to vCISO Platform
Luis Millares
Sep 10, 2025
WatchGuard & Girona FC Partner on Security Needs
Victoria Durgin
Sep 10, 2025
Channel Insider Logo

Channel Insider combines news and technology recommendations to keep channel partners, value-added resellers, IT solution providers, MSPs, and SaaS providers informed on the changing IT landscape. These resources provide product comparisons, in-depth analysis of vendors, and interviews with subject matter experts to provide vendors with critical information for their operations.

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.