Having had emails from a few of our suppliers over the past few days regarding the length of hdd warranties changing as of 1st of October this yr, I’ve phoned the manufactures of the ones we buy to try and find out if its just a case of Chinese whispers or in fact true regarding the warranty change, this is what I’ve discovered so far.

IBM:
When I spoke to there returns dept a few days back the lady I spoke to was unaware of any change in there warranty policy from next month, She even took my details and checked with her supervisor then called me back later that day to confirm there as yet been no change in policy, I spoke today with one of our suppliers of there hdd’s and it seems that IBM are staying with there warranty of 3 yrs on ide drv’s 5 yrs on scsi and 2 yrs on micro drv’s, IBM are now working with the Hitachi company to help bring more reliable cheap drives to the market place.

Maxtor:
Having spoke to there returns dept a few days back the guy I spoke to said there was possibility of a change in the warranty length on there drive’s but nothing had been decided for sure at that time, The supplier I spoke too today said that there was 99% certainty that the ide range of there drive’s would drop from the std 3 yrs to just 1 yr from the start of Oct this yr.

Seagate:
I spoke to there returns dept today the lady I spoke to has confirmed that from the 1st of Oct this yr all Seagate ide drives will only come with 1 yr warranty but scsi will still come with 5 yrs, until the 1st of Oct all ide drives will still be covered by 3 yr warranty. This covers the whole of Europe not just the UK.

If I get chance over the coming days I’ll phone Western Digital and Samsung see what they have to say on the subject.

I know this isn’t much help to the guys/Gals in the US as my info only covers the UK and Europe.