Which is your favorite Hard Drive Brand, and optionaly why?

It looks like a tight competition between Maxtor and Seagate :D

And they're off!

Maxtor have done us well, never had a failure yet ( knock on wood ). Western digital we've had fail on us, and i've noticed quite a bit of them go currupt on us. IBM... WELP! Most IBM drives aren't built to run 24 / 7 / 365 at least the last time i checked. I've heard way to many horror stories w/ IBM drives.

Seagate i've only used on a laptop, but never had a problem with. I hear pretty much nothing but good news w/ seagate.

OMG...there is nothing worse than Western Digital. I've never seen anything like it. They just fail constantly.

Maxtor's done well by us, as has Seagate. I lean towards Maxtor, because I like the company and their customer support far better than Seagate, but both make good drives.

I`ve run WD and Maxtors. WD's die, maxotrs die, however my current WD have run 365 days a year for the past 2.4 years and are still working strong. Same holds true for a seagate that's been running over 3 years in a computer I built.

I think it just realy depends on the drive you YOURSELF get.. I voted WD though - less problems overall.

I used to use Maxtor until I tried a Seagate, and now I use nothing but Seagate drives. The latest one I have is a 120GB Barracuda 7200rpm and it's fast (8mb cache), but more importantly it's completely silent... you can't here a single 'click' from it at all, I love it ;)

Voted Western Digital. It's all I use after having a Seagate fail on me. 6+ years with a Caviar 3.7GB and it's still running great.

I'm really only familiar with workstation-grade IDE HDs, but since that's mainly what we're seeing in low-cost servers, I guess I'm not completely out of it.

The Maxtor's that were based on Quantum drives immediately after the buyout were very good, but that's a generation or two back by now, so desktop-grade Maxtors are back to average reliability.

Western Digital drives vary so much since they tend to produce 8 different drives and name them all WD800JB. You just can't get a handle on reliability when one drive is completely different from another one with the same model #.

IBM (now Hitachi) is crap, though very fast crap. Deathstar anyone?

I would generally go with Seagate since I've heard the least bad stuff about them. ;) I've also had good luck with Maxtor, but I'm hearing of more and more Maxtor failures.

One thing I like about Seagate is that they have a reputation for making cool/quiet drives. Less heat definitely means better reliability (especially in a server environment) and I tend to think less noise does too. It just seems like a better engineered mechanism should be inherently quieter...less energy loss to vibration.

IBM Deathstar :)

wait, I mean Maxtor

I voted for Western Digital. It's true - the company does need to pull it together, but I haven't had issues with them (yet), knock on wood, too. I haven't had a Maxtor fail, either. I never had any experiences with Seagate, but my IBM/Hitachi drive that I had a while ago (1998ish) failed so miserably (burned the power supply!) that I don't ever want to have anything to do with them again.

Maxtor, all the way!!!

As you can imagine, we use a ton of drives for our servers...

While the majority of them are Western Digital (by previous reputation) I've sent over dozen for replacement in the past two months alone, while in the same period only sending one Maxtor, and one Seagate.

I would say about 50% of our drives are WDs, and the rest are evenly distributed between Maxtors and Seagates, so the replacement ratio is way off.

Needless to say, we are steering away from WD for now. I can safely say their replacement process is solid as we have received replaced drives in a little over a week after sending the bad one in.

It is not very enjoyable having to ship hard drives every week though...

JoseQ

Building computers for 10 years, and I can't identifiy 1 brand dominating the other in what I`ve built and seen. I have seen more maxtors die than anything though.. but not enogh to justify them being that much worse than WD.. I would say they are all pretty much equal.. I run my comptuers 24/7 and so do other people I build them for... I think your HD quality varies from box to box which sux.

Voted Western Digital.

I am going to have to go with Seagate. I have had an 80 gig seagate for about 4 months now, and it is blazing fast, and actually seems to tansfer better than my WD drives. However I also have a 250 gig WD(for about 3 months) a 80 Gig WD(for 14 months) and a 30 Gig WD(for just over 2 years) and none of them have failed as of yet.

I find that western digital drives are very cheap and they perform well. But I like seagate better as they hard drives seem more durable.

WD
Maxtor 2nd choice.

In the "home PC" enviorment I prefer WD, they offer a solid product with excellent speed.

In servers, I prefer SeaGate, have had nothing but good experiences with SeaGate drivers in terms of reliability.

ive had a 250gb western digital for the last month - doing well so far but its usually in a few years you see some problems if there are any

I always find it amusing when people refer to "home' use .. as there is no exact definition for that..

Maybe i'm unusual.. but I require my personal rig to run 24/7/365.. and nothing less..

I run my system hard and for hours on end.. and I expect it to take the torment, and still perform on par at all times.

I've used Seagate drives in some of the most demanding applications and environments.. and they perform consistently.

Hot, Cold, Humid, Dry..

They are also known for their Durability, things are built solid..

I've been running my current system: 2x 80GB Seagate Barracudas IV (7200rpm , 8.5ns, IDE) for the past 8+ Months (24/7/365) and not a shutter.. Did I mention I live in CA, and these babies have been exposed to some serious Electrical Torment, caused by Brownouts and Blackouts .. and yet they still endure.

and finally, how about them ears.. like your hearing? they are THE MOST QUITE drives built today..

i'm sure you can figure out who I voted for.... ;)

Originally posted by IceCell
I always find it amusing when people refer to "home' use .. as there is no exact definition for that..

Maybe i'm unusual.. but I require my personal rig to run 24/7/365.. and nothing less..

I run my system hard and for hours on end.. and I expect it to take the torment, and still perform on par at all times.

I've used Seagate drives in some of the most demanding applications and environments.. and they perform consistently.

Hot, Cold, Humid, Dry..

They are also known for their Durability, things are built solid..

I've been running my current system: 2x 80GB Seagate Barracudas IV (7200rpm , 8.5ns, IDE) for the past 8+ Months (24/7/365) and not a shutter.. Did I mention I live in CA, and these babies have been exposed to some serious Electrical Torment, caused by Brownouts and Blackouts .. and yet they still endure.

and finally, how about them ears.. like your hearing? they are THE MOST QUITE drives built today..

i'm sure you can figure out who I voted for.... ;)

Sounds like you work your drives like i`ve been working my WD for the past 2.x years :D