Comment by thisislife2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thisislife2 | Hacker News Reader

Personal anecdote - I would say (a cautious) yes. Bought 3 WD hard drives (1 external, 2 internal, during different time periods; in the last 10+ years) for personal use and 2 failed exactly after the 5 year warranty period ended (within a month or so). One failed just a few weeks before the warranty period, and so WD had to replace it (and I got a replacement HDD that I could use for another 5 years). That's good engineering! (I also have an old 500GB external Seagate drive that has now lasted 10+ years, and still works perfectly - probably an outlier).

That said, one thing that I do find very attractive in Seagate HDDs now is that they are also offering free data recovery within the warranty period, with some models. Anybody who has lost data (i.e. idiots like me who didn't care about backups) and had to use such services knows how expensive they can be.

I've bought a lot of WD drives over the years and my experience is they used to last 3 years (back when there was a 3 year warranty) and die right after the warranty expired. I think western digital does a very good job making their drives last to the end of the warranty and not a minute longer.

HDD manufacturers offering data recovery...kind of makes sense, and I'm surprised it's never been offered before. They're in a much better position to recover data than anyone else.

> replacement HDD that I could use for another 5 years

But the warranty lasts only 5 years since the purchase of the drive, doesn't it?

Yes, but the warranty is "irrelevant" when the drive actually last the whole 5 years (in other words, I am hoping the replacement drive is as well-engineered as its predecessor and lasts the whole 5 years - and it has so far in the last 3+ years).

> 5 years [...] well-engineered [...]

Programmed obsolescence, evilness, should not be rewarded like this.

That has been my experience (and conclusion) too with WD - it does seem very much like it has been engineered for planned obsolescence. That's why I chose to buy from their competitor this year. Consumers though have less and less option today as WD has already gobbled up the others and now there are only 3 major ones left - Seagate, Toshiba and WD. The other alternative is flash drives, but price and data recovery is a big issue with it that holds me back from fully switching to it.

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