I can't read, lalala.

Where is the outrage for OEM processors having a 30 DAY warranty by the seller while the retail has 3 YEARS from manufacturer? I guess nobody ever returns processors. The grey market has been around for a long time, not just for computer parts. Why do you think it costs less? Replacing components without charge is costing somebody money. You can save money buying OEM, but YOU assume the risk of replacement cost. Socialism does not apply to the business world.

<p>Manufacturers may be able to help by printing a warranty expiration date on the drive and packaging.</p>

<p> I know this is not perfect (warranties can be extended for many reasons), but it would give me some indicator that I can compare when I do not have access to a web site.</p>

And all this is new how exactly? This is the way it has always been... I work in a computer store, I should know.

However, the ones getting screwed aren't the end users, but actually the suppliers and resellers.

Here's a probable, though (fortunately) rare scenario:

Sep.2001: Western Digital ships a drive to TechData.
Dec.2001: Drive reaches TechData warehouses in Israel (where I am located)
Jan.2002: Drive is delivered from TechData to my store.
Feb.2002: Drive is sold from my store to end user as part of a system.
Nov.2004: Drive fails, and is brought back to store. WD's warranty coverage is over, but since the drive spent several months in TechData supply channel, I am able to exchange it for the end user. The money, in this case, comes out of TechData's accounts.
Feb.2005: New drive fails too. Since the three years since TechData sold the original drive are over, they don't cover it anymore. However, since the three years since I sold the drive aren't over yet, I have to cover the replacement out of my own pocket. This is a rare case, but it does happen.

"in many cases Seagate also adds additional months in warranty protection to allow for the time the product may take to work through channel supply chains before it is bought by an end user."

I think that is the point of conflict, Seagate. What cases will consumers get? They only get a four year warranty for a drive that has sat on the shelf for a year, but a 5 year warranty for drives that fly off the shelves? And consumers have no way to tell what length that warranty is from the packaging!

To me a 5 year warranty is from the date of my invoice, be it OEM, retail, what have you.

Where has everyone been all this time? This is nothing new and I can't believe that Seagate actually has to explain something like this.

If you own a Dell/Gateway/whatever and they installed a Western Digital drive in your system, then just try to do a warranty look-up on WD's web site to see how long it's covered. IT'S NOT. They will suggest you take it up with the company that installed the hard drive.

It's the same thing with warranty length. The system in place is to use a "born on" date based on when it was packaged and shipped to the reseller, not when the consumer bought it. This is standard practice as it would be extremely difficult for the manufacturer to know how long the drive sat on the store shelves before purchase. Just like Seagate mentioned, though, there are ways of handling situations where there is a large enough gap between the two dates.

Just to reiterate, this is nothing new. If you're going to get pissed off at Seagate for this, then you need to get pissed off at ALL hard drive manufacturers for what is industry-wide standard practices and are WELL documented.

The original story and the followup indicate that the drive was labled "retail kit," which would indicate that he should have gotten 5 years. Instead he got none.

Moreover, this whole incident highlights the problem with the grey-market in hard drives. One seemingly reputable e-tailer will sell a drive labled "OEM" and mean it is whitebox. Another seemingly repubate e-tailer will sell a drive labled "OEM" and mean it is grey-market. There is no way a consumer can know the difference until the product is physically in their hands. That is not a good situation for anyone who buys computer parts. That same situation does not occur with CPUs, as I argued here. http://techreport.com/ja.zz?id=68834

I suspect that there used to be this problem with CPUs, but for whatever reason the three classifications (retail, OEM, white-box) were consolidated into two catagories with clear distinctions (retail and white-box). The problem is that grey-market drives look and are often sold just like white box drives. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and acts like a duck, it very well might not be a duck in this case. I think that's stupid.

Seagate offers a 5 year warranty on their retail boxed and white boxed (bare drive) hard drives. They do not offer that on their OEM/grey market hard drives. I've never had a situation where a manufacturer (WD/Maxtor/etc.) did anything differently. Don't let NewEgg's descriptions fool you, those are not OEM drives.

Companies like CDW, ASI (we use them a lot for the systems my company sells), Dell, Gateway, and others buy hard drives in massive quantities and the warranty rests on the dealers hands (they are supposed to deal with Seagate, not the consumer). These hard drives are not supposed to get into the market but sometimes these companies buy too many and decide to sell them to dealers. Chances are good that you'll never see these products in your entire computing life, so it's not a big deal. That's what Seagate means by grey market.

Honestly this looks like INQ's normal sensationalism and TR just got sucked into it. Better to stay above it until the dust settles and INQ offers an apology or a clarification.

These were not OEM drives.

This is the original article about the Seagate warranty issue:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20139

If you look at the very last of the letters to The Inquirer at the page linked below, you will see a note from the person who originally passed on the story. He indicates that the drives were in retail packaging:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20189

Seagate's statement clarifies nothing.

With OEM and retail, you still get the same product right? Or do manfactures ship lower quality ones for OEM's since they don't have to worry about warrenties?

The reason it works this way is because as someone else said oem drives are very much cheaper because no warrenty.

The also set the born date because they dont want some bozo selling 4 year old warehoused drives on the market and them getting a ton or warranty hits because the drives have sat around too long. There are bits on a harddrive that dont handle sitting around well.

Seagate charges OEMs less for their drives because they don't have to warranty them. This is why OEM grey market drives are cheaper. It's not just the pretty box. They also get shipped from Seagate in much more efficient packaging (20 drives in a box about 16x16x24). You could get maybe four retail boxes in one of those packages.

The actual retail seller of the product should be very clear about the warranty. I have to agree with Seagate here. They can't be expected to hunt down every grey market dealer. All they can do is try to trace it back to the OEM and make sure they have contracts that limit this. Their other option is just to give everyone a warranty, but that's costly for them considering how much taking on a large OEM's hard drive warranty would involve.

Every time I've RMA'd a drive, I just put the serial number into the online RMA and it knows the manufacture date and lets me know if the drive is covered. I would hope that they would honor the warranty if the manufacture date warranty had expired and you had a receipt proving it had not based on sale date. 've never been in that pickle before, though.

If a hard drive is sold to or is intended for purchase by an OEM but is instead sold by a distributor or reseller to an end user, that product falls outside any agreed contract with Seagate, and its Seagate-backed warranty is invalidated.

Wait a second. What if I buy an OEM Hard Drive from Newegg? Do they consider that gray market?

Well, I'll be sure to check the drive's serial number before I even open the drive's antistatic bag from here out. At least then I can return it before I get burned.

Very well, too bad my drive is in the system now and i can't verify the serial..
Hopefully, i didn't get gibed.

Adi