WD Reducing Warranties on Some Hard Drive Series

[Apoptosis]

I heard that Western Digital was reducing their warranty period from three years to two years on WD Caviar Green/Blue and Scorpio Blue products. I reached out to them about this and this is the companies official response:

We are changing our warranty from three to two years on the WD Caviar Green, WD Caviar Blue and WD Scorpio Blue products only.

WD is continually evaluating the best mix of product and service features that benefit our customer base as a whole – from end users to systems integrators, PC manufacturers and distributors. WD provides exceptional quality, service and reliability and sets its warranty policy to best serve customers, while remaining competitive and financially sound.

The change in warranty policy is independent of our recovery from the Thailand floods. WD designs and manufactures its hard drives at the highest quality in the industry, and has built a reputation throughout the industry for superior quality. Under the slightly lower cost structure of our new warranty policy, WD can, to an even greater degree than before, reinvest the resources into enhancing our key deliverables to customers: industry-leading technology, quality, reliability, service and support. Standard PC warranties are one year. Even so, WD has maintained five-year warranties on its premium desktop/notebook products, including the WD Caviar Black, WD Scorpio Black and WD VelociRaptor products.

We know from providing reliable storage products of the highest quality for more than 40 years that customers will evaluate each hard drive brand’s quality, performance and service – including warranty period – when determining the best overall hard drive value.

We also know that product quality offers customers greater overall value than an extended warranty period. Returning a failed hard drive to its manufacturer for warranty replacement costs customers time and, in some cases, lost productivity. Avoiding these hassles altogether with reliable products of high quality is WD’s primary, ongoing goal.

We are unable to provide specifics, but this will allow us to reinvest even greater degree than before in resources into enhancing our key deliverables to customers: industry-leading technology, quality, reliability, service and support.

[Skippman]

The line about "we are unable to go into specifics" kinda tweeks me. It just says to me, as someone steeped in the corporate enviroment, that it increases profits. I don't know how many hard drives they actually get in RMA. I'd be interested to see some specifics.