2/26    What hard drives do you recommend?  To stay away?  Reliability is
        top priority.
        \_ regardless of brand, I've found a strong correlation between HDs
           that fail with enclosures that don't have good airflow. I've had 3
           consecutive WD-200 Caviar failures in 6 months on this particular
           computer while the same WD-200 Caviar didn't fail on any of my
           other computers. It turns out that the airflow sucks and the HD
           gets really really hot, to more than 130F. Nowadays I use special HD
           fans in conjunction with good filtered in and out fans that bring
           down the temperature to 80-90F. It's been 1 years since I did that
           and I haven't had any failure.
        \_ If reliability is top priority, then SCSI-Anybody.  The SCSI discs
           are aimed at business users and are built to much higher standards
           and typically come with a 5yr warranty vs. 1 year on consumer-level
           ATA drives.
           \_ SCSI is on its way out. Get SATA with a 3 year warranty.
              Western Digital and Seagate seem to be high quality.
           \_ Seconded. If you really care about reliability then you should
              go with SCSI (either u160 or u320) drives. If you are unwilling
              (or unable) to pay the SCSI reliability premium, SATA drives
              from either WD or Seagate are not bad. Like the poster below
              says stay away from Maxtor.
        \_ If reliability is top priority use RAID and keep backups. Stay
           away from Maxtor drives.
           \_ In all my years of dealing with hardware, I've found that
              no one drive manufacturer is consistently reliable. I would
              have to say that Maxtors do have a perceived reliability
              problem, but I've only had one maxtor about to fail and
              one which is somewhat unreliable, they did
              replace one within a reasonable amount of time. The worst
              drive failure I've had so far was an IBM, and it was out of
              warranty by less than a year. I've had Seagate fail on me
              also, but those were old seagates from Ultra10s, which are
              known to have used cheapie parts.
              \_ I had a Hitachi (formerly IBM's disk division) drive fail
                 within the warranty period.  I have a few acquaintances who
                 had IBM drive failures.  My ancient Maxtor's still ticking.
                   -- ilyas
                 \_ I had a Hitachi that was DOA, then its replacement (shipped
                    from factory) was also DOA, and then another, and finally
                    another.  That was all one incident.  I vowed to never
                    again buy a Hitachi.
                    As for perceived reliability, I've had mixed experiences
                    over the years.  Maxtor and WD have been *equally* reliable
                    in that I think I've only RMA'd one or two of each in the
                    50+ hard drives I've owned.  I had one IBM deathstar which
                    did exactly what its name promised.
                    I figure that the internals are all come from the same
                    place, so as said below, buy for warranty.  Always assume
                    that the drive will fail and that you'll have to replace
                    it.  Since *all* PATA drives are being knocked down to 1
                    year warranties now, I just watch the deal sites and buy
                    the cheap and big maxtor or wd drive of the week. - jvarga
                    \_ actually, on the contrary, all seagate drives now
                       come with a 5 year warranty. there are still other
                       drives out there with at least a 3 year warranty.
                    \_ how the hell do you own 50+ hard drives? Are you a
                       sysadm or an avid porn DVD collector?
                       \_ 50 hard drives over my geek lifetime.  My current
                          main system has 5, my server 3.  160GB hard drives
                          are also cheap enough as to where I can buy one,
                          back up everything to it, then just go stick it in
                          my fire safe.  I currently have 2 or 3 160's just
                          sitting in my safe. - jvarga
                          \_ Where do you put your safe?
                             \_ The safe is under the right side of my bed. The
                                combination is 26-36-15.  I go to work at 9am
                                and do not come back home until 6pm.  The alarm
                                code is 23049.  The front door key is under the
                                hollow rock to the left of my front door.  Why
                                do you ask? - jvarga
                                \_ Heh, that's amusing.        -mice
                                 \_ "Egad Brain, what are we gonnna do tonight?
                                    Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try
                                    to take over the world."
                                    \_ finger pinky
                                    \_ finger brain
                                    \_ finger mice
                 \_ Truthfully, in terms of reliability it does not
                    matter. They are all very close. IBM, Fujitsu,
                    Seagate, or whatever. It doesn't matter. Buy for
                    warranty and performance. I prefer SCSI drives for
                    performance, but they don't seem to last any longer
                    (in fact, less long - probably because of heat with
                    the higher RPMs).
           \_ Well put!
              \_ Strangely, my impression is much different.
                 In terms of mainstream IDE drives with at least three years
                 of warranty:
                 Hitachi > Western Digital > Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate
                 In terms of notebook drives:
                 Hitachi >> everyone else.
                 In terms of IDE drives with 1 year warranty, you got me,
                 since I don't buy those.
                 \_ I've had 2 Hitachi (IBM) notebooks drives die on me
                    relatively quickly, replaced with Seagate.  Quantum drives
                    died pretty fast as well.  I noticed most high end stuff
                    uses Seagate, that's my current brand of choice.