In a surprise move Seagate is announcing that effective January 3rd, 2009 all consumer class bare (or so called OEM hard drives) drives will only carry a three-year warranty, rather than the five-year warranty that they have enjoyed for over the last four or so years.

The warranty announcement does not apply to the Enterprise class hard drive, Barracuda, and Momentus hard drives that are sold in retail box kits. Of course, Enterprise class hard drives as well as hard drives in retail box form tend to be much more expensive than the typical bare/OEM hard drive that a good majority of consumers purchase. Enterprise class hard drive, Barracuda, and Momentus hard drives that are sold in retail box kits will still carry a standard five-year warranty.

Seagate claims that the decision to slash the warranty has no direct reflection on the product quality, but is instead a response to industry demands of partners and customers. The change will also bring the company more in line with standard industry warranty offerings.

No matter what Seagate will say, we have to believe that it is a price cutting move more than anything else. It costs a lot of money to stock inventory for old hard drives that may or may not fail, not to mention the logistics. We have to believe that price pressure in the consumer space has caused Seagate to respond this way and we do suspect that it will lead to at least some buyers’ price shopping, as it puts all of the major players on the same warranty playing field.