Seagate was among the last company to offer a 5-years warranty on its HDs dedicated to consumer electronic market. Starting January 3rd, 2009 (billing date), this warranty will be aligned with the conditions currently offered by other HD manufacturers: 3-years warranty.
In reality, it will most likely not change things a lot, as a 3-years old HD features such a lower storage capacity and performance level, that it is often not worth sending it back for repair or claiming for the warranty coverage.
As Mac users, we would have strongly preferred that Seagate recognize the issue with some of its 2.5" HD used in Apple notebooks, as they usually died less than 2 years after their installation. It seems that Apple is using much less Seagate HDs since this problem.
[translation by Linathael]
