[ale] OT - Hard Drive Warranties

[Brian Mathis]

Almost all hard drives today use fluid dynamic bearings, which will
never wear out, but other parts can still wear.  And don't forget the
risk of crashing the nanometer head into the platter spinning at
67MPH.

Warranties are generally a financial construct, and don't really have
much to do with the quality of a product.  A certain percentage of the
products will fail each year, and the company calculates how much it's
going to cost to replace %X number of drives per year, and then they
roll that into the purchase price.  A longer warranty means they have
to replace more of them, so the initial cost is higher.  They have to
balance the quality of the device to make sure it's reliable, etc...,
but 3 vs. 5 years almost certainly comes down to making these kinds of
calculations, instead of a statement about quality.

Aftermarket warranties are almost always a waste of money because the
cost far outweighs the risk.  Hard drives in particular are not big
ticket items, and once you're outside the manufacturer's warranty,
you're probably due for an upgrade anyway.


❧ Brian Mathis


On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Wolf Halton <wolf.halton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am a firm believer in basic - comes with the box - warranties for hard
> drives
> Though this is entirely anecdotal, I think most drives that are going to
> fail, fail during the first week or two.  If they don't fail by then, they
> will run at least 5 years, barring water damage, rough handling or other
> things that aren't covered by the extended warranties.  Thus a extra paid
> 5-year warranty makes no financial sense to me.
> After 5 years drives are more than likely to fail because their bearings go
> bad.  This is why there aren't any out of the box 10-year warranties.
> I have the same feeling about new cars.
>
> Call me crazy,
> Wolf