WD Hard drive - what's the warranty?

I go through hard drives ... like clockwork. Every six months the six work and home machines I maintain need a new hard drive.

None of the brands seem better than any other. I try to pay about $150 - $200 since that seems to the price of reasonably current drives with most of the bugs worked out.

The only other thing I look for is the warranty. Not that I ever bother to use them, but I figure a longer warranty means the manufacturer has a bit more confidence in the product.

Today I had to replace a drive quickly, so I didn't look for a warranty. When installed it, I couldn't find any reference to a warranty period.

I found something on Western Digital's web site when I entered the serial number:

Warranty Check for End User

By default, the warranty date is calculated from the manufacture date. However, if you have proof of purchase, we can update the warranty to calculate it from the purchase date. If you feel that the warranty date needs to be updated from the purchase date, please follow the instructions below.

1. Send us an email from this link:
   http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php
2. Put in "Update warranty" in the subject line.
3. Attach a picture or a scanned copy of your purchase receipt (jpg, jpeg, or gif formats only, max 500KB)
4. Send the email.

The date I was given was 10/2008, or about seven months from now. So I'm guessing the US warranty is one year, but if you don't have a receipt you can still make a claim for a shortened period.

Odd development.

PS. I am getting tired of restoring from backup. I'm planning to at least put NAS storage at home, with a RAID array so I can just swap dead drives without having to do a restore.