IBM Bails Out of the Hard Drive Market 351
DJ STORM writes: "IBM has decided to exit the hard drive market citing the market has become too competitive.They plan to sell 70% of the their HD business to Hitachi. The new company name is unknown.
One has to wonder if this has anything to do with IBM's troubled Deskstar GXP series." IBM will still have part ownership of the resulting venture, but it sounds like no more Deskstars. Update: 04/17 16:33 GMT by T : You may also find interesting some older posts about IBM's work on increasing hard drive storage (1, 2, 3); hopefully, the new company will continue that R&D effort.
"Leaving" the market (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Leaving" the market (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Leaving" the market (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Leaving" the market (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Notebood Hard drives (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Notebood Hard drives (Score:3, Interesting)
At first, there may be spike in the prices, but market forces will adjust that. The hard drive market, as the story said, is very competitive. And where there is competition (unlike the desktop OS market), market forces generally work well.
Re:Notebood Hard drives (Score:3, Informative)
Which isn't necessarily a good thing. I do a bit of casual notebook trading and repair on the side, but I gave up on Travelstars recently. A lot of the older DADA < 10Gb drives were (or became) very noisy, and they failed uncomfortably frequently. The big problem though was that if you buy enough used Travelstars from eBay, then (quite apart from the stupid near new prices they can attract) you'll find an alarming number of them turn out to be failed drives that have clearly been slipped out the back door of a repair shop - including locked drives that are the devil's own work to unlock [slashdot.org]. That sort of thing goes on all the time (it's a perk of the job) but the scale I saw it happening on rather indicated that it had become endemic among IBM approved shops. Eventually I just gave up on the damn things altogther, and it's soured me on the brand. The nasty reports on the desktop drives - and worse, IBM's "not our problem" attitude - just put the nail in the coffin. Now you'd have to cut me a pretty good deal to persuade me to buy an IBM brand drive of any sort.
Re:Notebood Hard drives (Score:2)
Re:Notebood Hard drives (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Bugger (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bugger (Score:2, Insightful)
I've had zero success with my IBM hard drives. Put simply, IBM hard drives are junk. Even worse is their customer service -- when you try and RMA a hard drive, they send you "refurbished" hard drives, which is just a nice way of saying that they are hard drives that others have already RMAd! And if you want to try and get a refund out of them, just about the only way is to take them to small claims court.
IBM deserves to have to get out of the hard drive business, IMO.
Re:Bugger (Score:2)
I'm more inclined to agree with the original poster. Out of five drives (a 75GXP and two 120GXPs at home, and two 60GXPs at work), all are running with no problems. The two work machines are fired up 24/7, too.
Re:Bugger (Score:2)
deskstar? I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it. Prices are $1.4/GB, and people still complain about the price. At what point do you say "we're making...$.50 per drive we sell. Let's give up." ?
Re:deskstar? I doubt it (Score:2)
I very seriously doubt the deskstar caused IBM to give up... At what point do you say "we're making...$.50 per drive we sell. Let's give up." ?
If, as you say, they were only making $0.50 per drive, that's an awful narrow profit margin. It doesn't take too many returns to wipe that slim profit out completely.
I think the DeathStar debacle had a *lot* to do with this development.
Re:deskstar? I doubt it (Score:5, Funny)
The point at which you are making 50 cents per drive?
This is A Shock. (Score:2)
They were the real competitors (Score:5, Insightful)
Too competitive? They were the ones introducing all the cool features. They were the first ones out with quiet IDE drives, the first ones with adjustable noise levels, the first with the "pixie dust" stuff with awesome platter density, the first big (60+ gig) laptop drives. I can't think of another hard drive company that was nearly as competitive as IBM was, and for them to say the market is too competitive, that really tells you something.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:4, Interesting)
It was like their PC lines. They were always $500 - $1000 more than anyone else. Who the hell would want to pay that?
I have an IBM Microdrive and I love it. But I wouldn't want to pay extra money for a regular HD when I could get something comparable for a shitload less.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:3, Informative)
I'm typing this from my Thinkpad, with a 32gb drive in it that spins so quietly I can't hear. They've got my vote, to say the least. But to be fair, I went to CDW's hard drive section to check prices. IBM's 60gb Deskstar 7200 rpm IDE is $136 - exactly the same price as Maxtor's about five lines down. Sounds competitive to me.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
I don't know...Maxtor drives have been of quite good quality lately. My 60GB drive with fluidic bearings is inaudible, it's fast, and overall, it's pretty damn good. Cheap too. At the very least, current drives are superior in every way to maxtor drives of the past.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
OK, I have been hearing "You're paying way more for the name" with reference to IBM. I've owned several IBM computers and would say unequivocally that you are paying more for quality. One example: I bought a low end Aptiva pentium 200mmx about 4 years ago that has had at various times Win95, Win98, NT 4, BSD, and linux. Aside from adding memory and additional hard drives I have never had a single problem with it. It is currently the internal server for my home network (DNS/IMAP/SMTP/MP3) running linux and in the last two years has only ever been turned off for moving. I have freinds who bought computers at the same time (Dells, Compaqs, Gateways, etc) that didn't undergo nearly as much abuse as my Aptiva, and they were all replaced about 3 years ago.
You want quality, you pay for it. You want cheap, you get cheap. Which means lower grade parts, poor assembly, and generally lousy support. I wouldn't know about IBM support, however. In my years of using their laptops and desktops at several jobs I've never needed to use their support.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
I am still using a generic dual 400 celeon from 3 years ago w/o a single major upgrade, I had a 486SX25 that was from NCR (yeah, NCR) and that was running for over 2.5 years straight, only went off when the UPS died)
I have a Dell LM-133 laptop that is still kicking it (ran straight for 3 years on my desk at school).
I think it all depends on the particular computer and the particular user doing the upkeep.
I guess I have been lucky. Anyone w/a Packard Bell that lastest as long as mine did (it was even running when I recv'd the class action suit papers like 5 years after we bought it).
Crossing my fingers.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
I think you ought to look back at what they've been charging for PCs in the past three years. Each year they've had sub $1000 machines on the market. Granted they've lost money on them, but they have been price competitive, and not, as you say, $500-$1000 above everyone else.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
competition has two sides, ability to sell at a reasonable price in the market, and the ability to make a decent profit.
the latter is where they had problems
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
Interpretation: At current market prices, we can't research/design/produce/sell them and make a profit.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:4, Insightful)
But since the reorganization of the 1990s, IBM divisions have been encouraged to sell outside the company, even to direct competitors, and make money in their own right. In this context it makes a lot of sense to spin them off.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
The prudent approach would be to severely clean house at the top management level of the disk drive division. It's as if the thumbheads at the top don't know any better than to look further than the quarterly bottom line money figures. Sure, their disk-drive profits are probably tanking big time right now. But how can they be so stupid to not know the real reason why, or expect that the current situation must be permanent?
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2)
In other news, this evening, entropy has become too disorderly, the absolute value of Pi has become too unwieldy and Jon Katz' arguments have become a tad specious.
(I'm not saying that the point isn't understood. Rather, I'm saying the words it's expressed in are meaningless.)
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I thought that they were the trend setters. How many times have I read "IBM breaks its own record by creating bigger/better/faster/smaller" hard-drive.
I suspect that their research in drive technology will continue, but that they'll make money by licensing the technology rather than building drives. It's actually a common IBM strategy; IIRC IBM receives over $1B per year in revenues from licenses of its research patents.
In true /. style I didn't bother to read the original article, but I also suspect they'll hang onto their laptop drive business, because it's a relatively high-margin business and because that's the area where their researchers have most thoroughly trounced the competition.
Note that while I am an IBM employee I have no direct knowledge of IBM's hard drive division (don't even know any of the engineers to collect scuttlebutt from). My relationship with IBM's hard drives is as a customer.
MLP- IBM Press release (Score:2)
Under the terms of the preliminary agreement, the companies plan a multi-year alliance to research and develop new open standards-based technologies for next-generation storage networks, systems and solutions.
In addition to, and separate from, the systems alliance, the two companies intend to combine various hard disk drive (HDD) operations into a new standalone, joint venture company, integrating their world-class research, development and manufacturing operations, as well as related sales and marketing teams. Upon completion of negotiations, Hitachi is expected to hold 70 percent of the joint venture and make a payment to IBM for its HDD assets.
Seems you're mostly right - they'll still do research; they're just leaving the mfg business to Hitachi.Re:They were the real competitors (Score:3, Funny)
If we edit out the "better/faster/" we get "bigger/smaller" hard drives. I do know what you mean, but I just think there must be a better way of saying, "My new IBM hard drive is bigger than my old drive. It is also smaller than my old drive."
Now if I could just get a faster/slower car.
Re:They were the real competitors (Score:2, Informative)
"My new IBM hard drive has more storage space than my old drive, and is also physically smaller! w00t!"
I still prefer the following (Score:2)
Fuel Efficiency (Score:2)
Re:Fuel Efficiency (Score:2)
Price reduction? (Score:2, Interesting)
Price reduction? This guy must be crazy... memory, for example, is costing many times more they were costing last december. Same goes for LCD monitors and HD...
Good Riddance... (Score:2)
Just my $.02
JoeLinux
Re:Good Riddance... (Score:2)
I have purchased at least 40 IBM drives and been very happy with them.
Bad Power Supply (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Riddance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago my 1.6 Gig Western Digital Caviar drive started to suddenly sprout bad sectors. I gave WD a call and was given an abusive and insulting runaround by the tech I got. I got so mad that I had to smash a few things to calm down before calling back to try to get someone else. The next guy was actually really nice and gave me an RMA# immediately once he realized I knew what I was talking about. After having the replacement several months, I booted up one day and the HD suddenly made the sort of noises you'd expect from a modem. That's when I discovered that the 3 platter 1.6 gig Caviars had been quietly recalled because they were extreemly prone to a variety of failures. I was rather mad, not so much because of the defect (stuff happens), but that the recall was apparently delayed and not well publicized.
IBM could have handled the situation better for sure - a well publicized recall is in the best interest of the customer. However, more often than not, keeping the problem as quiet as possible is in the best interest of the company. IBM apparently tried to keep this one quiet (or was simply blind to the problem for a long time), but they got blasted instead. Sadly, I don't think the loss of this competitor in the HD market is a good thing.
Re:Good Riddance... (Score:2)
If your friend had a problem with IRQs, then he most likely had either a faulty controller or a faulty BIOS or both.
Re:Good Riddance... (Score:2)
Not quite out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not quite out... (Score:2, Funny)
Kind of like how
manufacture vs. research (Score:5, Interesting)
personally, i hope they keep their labs working on the research end of data storage, because i'm not sure that there's anyone else to pick up the slack. if there isn't, the pace of "bigger capacity, faster, smaller footprint, more, more, more ..." just might slow down a little.
Re:manufacture vs. research (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:manufacture vs. research (Score:2)
I think its hight time something new came along. The market is ripe for it, over saturation of the current(read:old) technology, IBMs dominance not what it once was, they own most of the HDD patents, which might be coming due to expire hmmm.
The more I think about it, the more I like your thoughts..
"New, from IBM! Solid State hard drive cubes, Terrbyte per cubic inch,
ok maybe not, but Wouldn't that be fun?
Re:manufacture vs. research (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM has done some wonderful research- they were the first to demostrate 10Gb/in^2 (yeah, dumb units) a few years back w/ a new Read Head. at the time it widely accepted that such densities couldn't be realized. today's products are shipping at these densities.
personally, i think IBM made the right choice. historically, areal densities have been increasing by over 100% each year. the past year, it's been reduced to 60% and i would expect it won't get better. we're running into hard limits in convential recording.
i just hope the people at IBM (some of the best in the field) either stay w/ the new venture or at least stay in the field (w/ Maxtor or Seagate).
oh, please, avoid Western Digital. the horror stories those drives made me go through...
They will be missed (Score:3)
I hope the new company will continue to make enterprise and commercial class drives.
Competitive = the market was faster... (Score:2, Funny)
Kudos to Big Blue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kudos to Big Blue (Score:5, Insightful)
The IBM Storage Systems division is/was a part of the Hardware divsion. That division also includes PC, notebook, mainframe, and various other hardware sales. It, as a whole, accounted for ~39% of the total revenue and ~29% of the total profit of IBM for last year (as per their latest 10K [edgar-online.com]).
Now those aren't numbers to sneeze at, but consider that the HD division is a segment of the entire Hardware division. And while the numbers aren't split out, if you read the 10K you'll see they blame a lot of the decline in revenue for the Hardware group on pressures in the PC and HDD market.
Given all of that, IBM can look at the long term market and spin off a portion of itself to an independant company which it retains a large share of. Realize some immediate cash gains, and you reduce the risk you are exposing the company to. If that 3rd party company folds, then you have a tax write off on an investment, and it doesn't look nearly as bad on the balance sheet.
But the important thing here is that IBM has this option. The storage device market is not their lifeblood. If you released a holographic storage system tomorrow that blew the entire HDD market out of the water, IBM would be hurt, but not fatally impaired.
The same is not true for most of the companies you mentioned. They're looking at potential extinction (particularly the middle men in the entertainment business - e.g. the studios and record labels). So they're fighting for their lives. They can't just "leave the market" or "restructure their business". There is no new market and no new structure for them to go to and retain anything even vaguely like what they have now.
I deeply disagree with their attempts to have government prop their industries up, but I'm also realistic. Cornered animals don't fight nice.
Re:Kudos to Big Blue (Score:2, Informative)
HDD was a part of the Technology Division. It was in Storage Technology Division. Storage Systems Divisions is things like tape backup systems for mainframes.
The Technology Division is dedicated to inventing new products, etc. and then usually selling or leasin the technology out to competitors. IIRC, the Microelectronics Division was the big money-maker in Technology Division, but now (with the recent glut in the microelectronics markets) there doesn't seem to be a big money-maker...
The Technology Division is funded seperately from the Hardware, Global Services, Software, etc. divisions. I don't know how they are making ends meet in that division right now, but signs had been bad for a while when I left. Microdrive was one of the only profitable drives that wasn't having problems during development.
Re:Kudos to Big Blue (Score:3, Insightful)
Then kudos to IBM for diversifying and changing with the times. The IBM of today looks very little like the IBM of 10 years ago, which looks even less like the IBM of 25 years ago. Remember when they were a typewriter manufacturer? Remember what a typewriter is?
What IBM does right is always look for the new cheese instead of complaining about how the old cheese smells or how someone stole it from them. It explains why they are still a contendor after so many years.
Re:Kudos to Big Blue (Score:2)
--
Damn the Emperor!
Holographic drives (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Holographic drives (Score:2)
Re:Holographic drives (Score:3)
The Register has also an article... (Score:5, Informative)
A possible cause... (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, maybe that has something to do with the 'competetive' market.
Too competitive? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think what IBM meant to say is that they are less able or willing to compete.
Corrections ... (Score:5, Informative)
Uhmmm .. this isn't exactly correct. From the article ...
Separately, IBM and Hitachi also said they plan to combine their various hard-disk drive operations into a new, stand-alone joint venture. Hitachi would own 70 percent of the joint venture and pay IBM for its hard drive assets, subject to the completion of negotiations, the companies said.
It would appear that the headline is more correct than the story, IBM is out, but own a 30% stake in the new company ... this is not the same as selling 70% to Hitachi ...
Smart move (Score:2, Interesting)
I think IBM has seen the industry getting undercut by small co's who are focusing away from the desktop/server market and onto other devices for their storage needs. Given these are still small (but emerging) markets, it's really tough for a company to wait & see what happens and THEN innovate on top.
I think IBM learned their lesson in this scenario from the disk drive wars circa 20 years ago, and they don't want to waste more investments of time and money into an ever-decreasing-margin business.
Too competitive once your premium rep is gone (Score:3, Interesting)
Then, IBM's reputation got hurt; you all know that story by now. Of course, this happened after most of the IDE machines I run ended up with IBM drives in them. :-( I'm no longer willing to pay $50-100 extra for that IBM brand name. In fact, I don't know if discounting the IBM drives would convince me to buy them at this point.
I just wish IBM had fixed their quality problems, and without looking like they were covering something up. The "you are only allowed 333 hours of uptime per month" hack didn't help them at all.
I'd like to go back to the days when I could say "buy IBM brand drives or lose". Now I don't know what to buy or recommend. This sucks.
Re:Too competitive once your premium rep is gone (Score:2)
Re:Too competitive once your premium rep is gone (Score:2)
Were IBM drives failing too much and they decided they wouldn't warrant drives that are used more than that? (since they would go bad during the warranty period to often presumably).
Is my IBM SCSI drive warranty now gone because I run the system 24/7?
Low Yields? (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect their problems could be due to badly designed and inefficient processes. The drives may work but if there is too many failures from the cleanroom no amount of sales is going to make a profit.
I know this because I know 3 techs who used to work there!
What about SSA drives? (Score:2)
It appears that this is a move by IBM and Hitachi to develop a coherent SAN alternative to EMC - and having used both IBM's and Hitachi's SAN products, this will put EMC in quite a bind.
Remember Micropolis? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Remember Micropolis? (Score:2)
I was about to call horseshit on that claim, but then I checked the year again. How the Hell did 14 years pass since I had an ESDI drive.
Holy Crap, I must be getting old.
surprising (Score:2)
Merger, not sale! (Score:5, Informative)
microdrive? (Score:2, Interesting)
so is IBM or hitachi going to keep good on their warranties for the umpteen billion deskstar drives on the market still under warranty?
why didn't WD or Maxtor buy this HD company spinoff? i'm sure IBM's hard drive tech research division is more than worth the money...
Re:microdrive? (Score:2)
And history passes (Score:2)
first PCs, now harddrives
sad to see it go, but hopefully the new company can put out drives of the quality of the IBM of a few years ago
Show Me the Drives (Score:3, Funny)
Response to the CBDTPA? (Score:4, Interesting)
Could this also be a preemptive response to the CBDTPA [eff.org]? IBM has indeed driven much of the innovation in hard drive technology, so maybe they figure they should get out now while the gettin' is good.
Bail out? Pshaw. (Score:2)
They'll wait for the community to forget the word 'DeskStar' and come back with a brand new line of 'enterprise class storage systems'
Like Imation, maybe? (Score:2)
-sn
Maybe they could call the company (Score:5, Funny)
Apr 17 11:15:12 ben kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=11288143, sector=11288080
IBM Bailed out because Management sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Lou Gerstner was a horrible CEO, and this is probably his last insult to the company. Selling divisions only helps the stock price for a little bit.
Ever hear the line, "eating your own seed corn?"
So who makes "good" hard drives? (Score:2)
I know lots of you have had problems with IBM drives, but my personal hard drive failure anecdotes all involve other companies. In fact, if you avoid the "problem" drives, I think I'm not the only one who likes IBM drives, because the non-problem drives seem to get pretty good ratings from other people, too.
But now I'm being forced to change brands. So my question to the collective mind of slashdot is: Of the remaining companies, who's the best? I prefer reliablity and compatablity over cost and speed. (Not that cheap and fast are bad; I just usually make the trade off in favor of reliable). Thanks.
Re:So who makes "good" hard drives? (Score:5, Informative)
Reliability is found in the mid-range 10,000rpm SCSI drives like the Atlas III and in the low-end 5400rpm models, particularly those from Samsung and to a lesser extent Seagate and Maxtor. SCSI drives *do* have longer warranties, if that says anything. In 7200rpm, probably Maxtor or Seagate's offerings.
Quiet: IDE, the choice is just about any 5400rpm drive, or Seagate's Barracuda IV for 7200rpm. Fujitsu's MAN-series SCSI disks are as close as you'll get to quiet, there.
Fast: IDE, 5400rpm: Western Digital's WD800AB. 7200rpm: Either Maxtor's 740X (8.5ms seek) or the Western Digital WD1200JB (transfer rates through the roof).
SCSI: Maxtor's Atlas III for 10,000rpm or Seagate's X15-36LP among the 15krpm units.
Is that what you want to know?
Find out more at www.storageforum.net or www.storagereview.com. We're really very helpful people.
500 gigs... (Score:2)
Great news for Sun (Score:2)
Hitachi has some excellent storage R&D in their own right as well, and arguably have the best technology in the SAN market. As we all know, most good tech starts on the high and and filters its way downhill.
Had to re-read the article header (Score:2)
But I see this as a very good thing.
Bye bye IBM (Score:2)
IBM makes good, reliable drives. Sure you pay a bit more for quality than you do for crap. That is the case IN EVERY OTHER INDUSTRY.
I won't be buying any drives from the new company, I want to buy American and keep Americans at work - I don't want to buy Japanese products.
So what would be a good alternative for high quality, fast SCSI drives?
Molecular Storage Size = Obsolete Technology? (Score:2, Interesting)
In 1997 when I visited and spoke with a number of their people, we discussed how as a storage medium, disk drives use a relativly unprepared surface with a sophisticated head, unlike memory which uses a sophisticated surface preparation to store data. In drives the money is spent on the head.
As I recall it, the trend was then toward preparing the disk surface more and more in order to give the head a fighting chance to distinguish between bits.
The limit of size was near (at the time they were finilising their coin sized drive) to the point where information was being stored close to molecular size.
Perhaps they have now reached that limit and have decided that funds are better spent on other storage research.
Re:Good! (Score:2)
your fault for data loss... a 3 disk SCSI raid doesnt cost much at all and gives you the ability to lose a drive and NOT lose data. 5 drives is better for redundancy and failure recovery. Doing important work on anything other than SCSI in a raid is plain stupidity.
sorry about losing your origional recordings... next time be sure to use quality hardware...
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
ANY hard drive company will tell you that. I've been doing this for 20 years. I've had all the brands crash. From Micropolis (back when they were the Big Thing), Seagate, Shugart, Control-Data, Hitachi, Quantum, Maxtor ("old" and "new") and many
other companies that you have never heard of. Plus, dozens of Western "Plastic Stepper Arm" Digital drives.
IBM makes--or rather, made--some of the best drives out there. They invented much of the technology.
No way to back up? Try a tape drive. 1960s technology, works just fine. Or a a proper RAID. Or just buy another hard drive and copy them over by hand.
IDE drives are all crap. They are the cheap end of the line. You get what you pay for....
Re:Good! (Score:2)
I say PHOOEY to you sir!
PHOOEY!
If you do important work, you had better be sure to have a back-up solution. There are many cheap solutions.
Re:Good! (Score:2)
I yelled at my grandpa a couple years ago for storing critical, but recoverable data on his harddrive without backups. Now I get to yell at you for storing critical (your own words), unrecoverable information without backups.
Unfortunatly I can't use words like "idiot", "stuid", "reckless", and "asking for trouble"; without getting modded down (correctly) as flamebait. So just consider youself chasties with the above words and don't do it again.
Sometime I'm going to have to take my own advice and do backups...
Re:Good! (Score:2, Interesting)
A: that I lost data
or
B: that after a mere six months IBM didn't offer to send a replacement, but told me to go to a seek out a recovery solution for several grand?
The answer is B.
And, they actually told me that if I opened the case all my data would be instantly lost and this was why I should never attempt to recover my own date. In fact, I did!
If you read my post, it said I couldn't back it up, not that I never recovered it. I did! I popped the fucker open and loosened the screws and it started turning again and I got my data out although the drive arms flipped out the fourth time I powered it up and that was the end of the story. And the moral of the story is, those drives sucked.
Flamebait --whatever. IBM support sucked in this case.
Re:Good! (Score:2)
I can talk about IBM support, since I have never had a problem with ant IBM HD I have ever owned, IDE or SCSI.
Re:WD (Score:2)
Re:Is it April 1sr again (Score:2)
RTFM, Dude (Score:3, Insightful)
IBM's drive packing instructions [ibm.com] are pretty darned explicit. And they tell you right up front that improper packing is grounds for voiding the warranty.
I recently shipped a flaky DDYS-T18350N back to them for RMA replacement. I followed their packing instructions. The drive was replaced without incident.
They're not trying to invent reasons to screw you out of the warranty; they're trying to eliminate damage during shipping. Without careful shipping, how can they know the failure they're seeing was due to faulty manufacturing, or due to static buildup during shipping?
Schwab