Western Digital - only one premature failure (for me, that's within 5 years of purchase) out of over 40 drives in the past 10 years (2GB to 200GB). I don't currently have any over 6 years old though as I tend to trade them when I upgrade. Seagate is a close second. I have 2 of those (20 & 30GB) that have been in continuous use for 5 years. I have a Connor 10GB drive that is still plugging away after 6 years nearly continuous use - though it is noisy and slow.
There's a command line program that puts the WD caviar drives into 'acoustic mode'. I'm not sure what it does or what difference it makes but it exists. Also, I've got an 80Gb hitatchi which is fairly loud, and makes random 'mewing' sounds every so often, but the new 400Gb hitatchi's are much quieter... So maybe going by manufacturer isn't always a gaurentee.
Maxtor are nice and fast, but my 300GB makes a fair bit of noise at times. Never had a problem with their drives, still got an old 8GB drive of theirs still going strong. Although it does sound like someone rubbing a cheesegrater on concrete when searching. I've only ever had problems with Seagate drives, but that was a while ago (when 40GB cost £100). Their RMA service however is fantastic. Western Digital, fairly quick, fairly loud, fairly OK. Nothing special really, no problems either. Samsung Spinpoints are really quiet, I mean really quiet. Not the fastest drive I've had though. But reliable. Overall, I'd go for a Maxtor. Samsung if quiet is essential.
I've never had a problem I can think of with WD. I like seagate but did have a drive fail on me. Both are very quiet so I wouldn't consider that aspect, although I suppose if you were considering looks (dunno, some people do) it would have to be the seagate since they have a big shiny top lol
On the other hand, if you're talking about looks, the new WD's come in a pretty cool, all-black casing. Just a bit of label remover and, mmmmmm! Hitachi's are quite shiney too, but maxtors are pretty boring
Seagates are universally awsome i got one in my comp and when combined with the ruber mounts that came with it i don't hera a thing at all even when its seeking and it runs nice and cool......i couldn't recomend them more!
I was a hardcore Western Digital advocat up until a year ago. My main harddrive in every PC for years was always a western digital. I owned maxtors only due to dirt-cheap sales a CompUSA, and used them for mass-storage but never for games or as a main drive. (I think they are noisy) I tought my western digitals were dead silent and fast, that was until I won a Seagate Baracuda 120gb harddrive. I put it into my PC as more storage, not thinking that it was the best drive I have ever owned. Then when prepping for Project Redwood, I knew I was limited to one harddrive. I decided to do my own benchmarking and tests to pick which drive I would install. I had my pick of a 74GB Raptor, 200GB WD, 200GB Maxtor, and my 120GB Seagate. With a fresh windows install on my 36GB raptor, and running the test harddrive using a SATA to IDE converter I could ensure that it was running as fast as possible. My results: (I have the exact numbers at home somewhere) 74GB Raptor -Too noisy, but the fastest in access time and data rate. 200GB WD -Quiet, can't hear it during sustained access, but can hear it duing random access, fast both in transfer and access time. 200GB Maxtor -Audiable both during sustained and random access, but on par with WD in access and transfer rate. 120GB Segate -Dead silent...this is sitting on a hard surface with no mounting, it should make some noise right?...during both random and sustained access I have to physicaly touch the harddrive to notice any vibration. The access time was only marginaly slower then the WD and Maxtor, but the transfer rate was faster by a small margin.
ive been reasonably happy with most drives ive owned, not had a westen digital in ages as i bought one back then they were *real* noisy and it put me off big fan of fujitsu, and id love to be able to afford to replace all my drives with MAT and MAU drives, but i dont see that happening somehow, although either a atlas15k2 or fujitsu MAU is on the cards soon for a replacement OS drive have 2x80GB seagate Cuda4s in the htpc which are completely silent, its scary. 10k6 in my main rig that is a little on the noisy side, but perfectly acceptable for a 10k drive (and sounds quieter than a raptor) and another seagate as an os drive in the server that is nice and quiet have 4x 160GB maxtor DM9s mainly for the sake that they were going cheapish 2nd hand and i needed 4 sata drives for a raid5, will replace them with either maxtor DM10s or seagate 7200.8s when i need more space though yay for storage!
Maxtor for me. I can't really afford a WD Raptor and I'v never had any failures with a Maxtor, performance seems pretty impressive too, and though not the quietest, it's still hard to hear it over other noises - fans etc
a mix between WD and seagate. i have a WD 120GB and a seagate 120GB in this machine. both of them are fast, quiet and reliable as hell. if i need to buy a drive, i go for seagate first, then if thats not possible, Western Digital. i tend to find Seagates run slightly cooler and slightly quieter. its a close call though. my choice is purley subjective, as far as im concerned, WD and Seagate are about on an even par for giving me good solid dependable drives.
seagoat for ever! Use seagate for my primary hdd's, got a couple of maxtors too but i dont really like them. Noisey and one of them is near death so bleh!
If you buy it at the right time you can get a 160gb WD HD from Outpost.com for US$50 after rebate. I have one, and am planning on buying another.
i have a 40gb maxtor IDE, 160gb maxtor sata, 120gb samsung sata...all very nice, the samsung makes alot of noise when i have 5 slots taken from people over the network at uni downloading at 250kbs a piece. but all very nice
