Question about WD Warranty

[iRoNeTiK]

My dad's WD 80 GIG SATA150 failed and he bought the retail kit so the warranty is only for 1 year but for baredrive it is 3 yrs?

How does WD figure? Because it comes in a nice package with some paperwork and a cable the warranty goes down by 2 yrs? LoL

[DougLite]

Retail drives have a few strikes against them before they even get "out of the box" (pun intended)

A) They are handled by whatever teenager at Best Buy, and he probably doesn't care about HDDs being shock sensitive.

B) They are often installed in systems where little attention is paid to proper power supply and cooling/ventilation.

C) They are often installed by end users that may have little to no technical expertise, or (perhaps even worse) "Geek Squad" types *shudder*

[Laforge]

Retail drives have a few strikes against them before they even get "out of the box" (pun intended)

A) They are handled by whatever teenager at Best Buy, and he probably doesn't care about HDDs being shock sensitive.

B) They are often installed in systems where little attention is paid to proper power supply and cooling/ventilation.

C) They are often installed by end users that may have little to no technical expertise, or (perhaps even worse) "Geek Squad" types *shudder*


D) They are often highly discounted (to the retailers) so that they will buy them in the first place.

[DougLite]

Eugene Ra, the boss over at SR, made an interesting suggestion:The definitive answer is because Best Buy, CompUSA, and Fry's PRESSED WD to lower retail warranties to one year so the various "extended warranties" (ie, margin) became more hawkable.Makes sense...WD wins, as they only have to carry warranty invnetory for one year instead of three, and the retailer wins as well because they sell high profit serivce plans on the drives.