Western Digital increases warranty period on hard drives

WESTERN DIGITAL said it is increasing the warranty period on certain of its hard drives. The company will do this by standardising WD enterprise drives to a five year warranty, while WD desktop and notebook drives will be standardised at three years.

All drives sold through distributors authorised by Western Digital and manufactured, or bought, after June 1 2005 will be affected by the policy. The desktop and notebook WD Scorpio, WD Caviar, WD Caviar SE and WD Caviar SE16 drive families are affected by the 3 year policy, whereas the WD Raptor and WD Caviar RE enterprise drives are supported with a five year warranty.

Arif Shakeel, president and chief operating officer for WD, said in a press release: "WD's new warranty policy aligns with the industry standards and meets or exceeds customer expectations." MO