Which hard drive brand is better?

[SEALTEAMTHREE]

Should I buy a Western Digital or a Maxtor HDD? I can get my hands on a 60 GB WD ATA-100 7200 RPM for $150, or pay retail for a Maxtor. I've heard stories about both of them going bad. I'm using a WD 7200 RPM 20 GB ATA-66 right now, its a replacement (my first one kicked it).

[rangeral]

I'd trust the wd before a maxtor some people have been lucky with maxtor but alot have not far more than the good. Myself been using wd for 4yrs now and helping out down at friends shop over the years our success rate has been good with wd, though 2yrs ago wd had a big problem with 10g drives but there rma has always been excellent no bs or stories from wd always have gotten a good exchange or rma. Couple that with backing up your data and at least a dying drive can be replaced without too much frustration.

[NDC]

Actually, I've heard cases with both manufacturers, WD and Maxtor. But personally, I use both of them for my personal systems and systems I build for people and haven't had any problems with either brand... I've had the worst luck with Seagate IDE and Quantum drives...

[rangeral]

Anymore it seems like just a crapshoot whether you can get any device that works out of the box, many years ago parts seemed to be built better, today its aggravating.

[NDD]

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From all my years with computers (about 15), it's all about luck. Very rare models really have known issues, I remember one model of WD had huge problems (those of 6GB, if I remember correctly).
But then, I've been using HDD from all major makers, WD/Quantum/Seagate/Fujitsu/Maxtor/etc, but since I bought my IBM 75GXP 45GB ATA100 there is only one for me : IBM :)

I've sold about 50 so far, both of 75GXP and 60GXP models - not even one returned, so far so good.

Don't trust everything you see written on forums, people who have no problems won't post, so most of the posts are from people who have some problems and so you might get impression that "IBM is **** !!! Only WD for me now" :)

Check your other components (mobo/PSU/etc), sometimes HDD fails coz of something else.

Best Regards ...

[SEALTEAMTHREE]

Thanks all!