Two major hard drive manufacturers, Seagate and Western Digital, are cutting their warranties to as little as one year. Starting on December 31st, Seagate will cut protection for most standard desktop and notebook drives from five years to one, and other drives, including its hybrid Momentus XT, will get three-year warranties instead of five-year ones. Meanwhile, Western Digital is reducing the warranties for three of its drives — the Caviar Blue, Caviar Green, and Scorpio Blue — from three years to two, starting January 2nd.

New York - Western Digital reported it restarted hard-drive production at its Bang-Pa-in, Thailand, facility during the last week.

The facility had been under up to 6 feet of water when it was inundated on Oct. 15. The factory was not expected to re-open for at least another week, the company said.

The area was pumped dry as of Nov. 17; power was restored on Nov. 26, and production officially began again on Nov. 30.