In the case of WD they have 3 levels of warranty: 1 year which is almost always their cheaper external boxes, 3 and 5 years for desktop, moblie, and more expensive external boxes, and this regardless if it's oem or retail. With the desktop drives 3 and 5 year warranty, it depends on the line. All their Enterprise drives have 5 years. Their Cavier Blue and Green series have 3 years, and the Cavier Black and Velociraptor/Raptor series have 5 years. You can get a full write up
HERE.
Hitachi, btw, is the same. They have different lines with different warranties (you can check that
HERE), some lines have 2 warranties depending on when they were produced. In fact, only their Ultrastar line has a 5 year warranty. The rest are 3, 2, or even 1 year.
Maxtor, from what I remember, oem or retail, are covered by a 3 year warranty, and that is retroactive back to the end of 2006. Originally their oem drives were 3 years, retail 1 year. So, if you bought a retail drive after 2006, and it came with a 1 year warranty, it now has 3 years.
Samsung, 5 years. All drives, all lines.
Seagate is a little tougher. They distinguish oem from retail, as such the same warranty for an oem drive does not apply to their retail drive. So, oem Enterprise and Nearline drives come with a 5 year warranty, while all the rest come with a 3 year warranty UNLESS the distributor has paid for the extended warranty that brings it up to 5 years. What's interesting to note is that at one time (4 years ago) they changed their warranty for oem drives to 5 a year warranty, yet changed it again within the last year or so. As for retail, the warranties range from 1 year to 5 years. It all depends on the product. Most external drives are 1 year unless stated to have 2, and most retail hard drives from them come with either 3 or 5 years.
OH, and I almost forgot the cherry of this all: OEM warranties are for OEMs ONLY. Not the end user. Most manufacturers will still honor the warranty if you deal with them directly, but you really should be going back to the supplier you bought the drive from (note: if the local warranty with the supplier is up you should expect to pay the shipping costs if there are any). With retail drives the warranty is between you and the supplier for whatever period their policy states, and between you and the manufacturer thereafter.
