I searched on the forums for hard drive recommendations, but I couldn't find anything. So here is a thread dedicated to it.

I am looking specifically for an internal ATA 7200RPM drive. Gig size really isn't that important, just as long as it is over 60. What brands have you guys and gals had the best luck with? I think we can all agree that the majority of hard drive purchases are probably based on "luck". The one that just died on my system was a Maxtor, and it was around 8 to 10 months old. I have never had a Maxtor fail before, or any other brand for that matter. I am going hard drive shopping really soon, what should I get? What should I avoid?

I've had good luck with Western Digital. But HD's are like brands of tape. Everybody has had problems with one brand or another. There are several threads on HD's in the PC editing section. I don't think your computer is set up to recognize the real big drives (over 135 GB). So, the 120 GB drives will offer the best value.

I used to read up on hard drive tests, for many years actually. Western Digital almost always came out on top. I have 2 computers with Western Digital HD's in them. They're still ticking, and no bad sectors.

The major players are all about the same so far as reliability and throughput. One may edge the other one by a very slim margin but that'll have no noticeable impact on your capture, or any other function for that matter.

I've used Seagate, Western Digital, Quantom (maxtor) and IBM (Hitachi) over the last 15 years and had very few problems. buy what's most cost effective.

The only thing I'd avoid is drives made in Korea or China, namely IODATA and Buffalo. Any of the Japanese or Taiwanese made drives from the above mentioned companies should serve you well. But, as mentioned above, there is always that odd one out. Hey, computers are only human.

Promax recommends IBM/Hitachi drives for (parallel)ATA drives. WD is also good. They are the fastest drive to run applications off of, followed by IBM. WD drives are a bit noisier than IBM.

If you really care about reliability you can check storagereview.com's reliability database, which is a database of user reports but the sample rates aren't that high.

I have had bad read writng experiences with seagate IDE drives. Do a search and you might find the thread I posted.

I now use Maxtor drives, and they have always performed well for me. WD IU have had also in the past and worked well again.

Cheers,

Ed smith

I'm just the opposite of Ed....but all due respect.

I've never had a Maxtor that didn't become really noisy and bomb out before a year of use.

I use Seagate barracudas exclusively with one exception which is Western Digital (my second choice). But, I did have one WD that bombed out on me this year(which lasted ~1.5 years).

IBM's by far have the highest failure rate in a web servers with high traffic. As a comparison, I've have numerous Seagate cheetahs running in a high load server farm for 6 years without a hiccup.

I would be considered a "power user" by an IT spreadsheet which could add to the fray as an FYI.

Excellent advice! Thanks for all of the info.

Jeff- Yeah, I heard about the 135 GB "limit", but that's not too much of an issue since I don't think I'll ever have anything approaching 10 hours of DV footage on the drive simultaneously.

The limit is, that when you format the drive (HFS+) it will only show up as about 135mb. You will have spent extra money for the larger drive and you won't be able to access that extra space.

I've been writing specs on systems being used. The consensus on PC drives are Western Digital and then Seagate.

Laptop drives are a different animal.

I have a WD80 and a Maxtor Quantum 40 gig, both 7200 rpm. My Maxtor used to be my capture drive until I retired my 13 gig.. now it's my OS/Programs drive and the WD80 is the capture. Both of them are awesome, never had any problems. I've had my Maxtor for almost 2 years, and my 80 gig for about 5 months now.

I love Seagate because they are the most silent disks I know (you really don't hear them) and they never let me down.

I have a Western Digital 120GB Special Edition with 8MB Cache. I NEVER hear this HDD at all, its worked flawlessly and it has the 8MB cache so its faster than the drives with the 2MB cache. I reccomending going to www.newegg.com to look at it and any others you're considering.

storagereview.com has some info on which drives are the quietest. Seagates are the quietest but the IBM drives are a close second with better performance (at least with applications). Promax recommends getting IBM drives for video editing and getting the 8MB buffer instead of the 2MB.

I have had a Western Dig go kookoo on me. Maxtor too. Plus I have had three OEM drives in Macs go belly-up. Bottom line, I don't trust any of them. Well, La Cie has been OK so far.

Back up your files, boys and girls.

Purely anectdotal, but we had a Lacie 500gig that had to be returned 3 times. They were good about it though and the other one is working great. I think they've been in service about 6 months.

That 500 La Cie is one big honker, eh? I call it the monster drive. I hope the one in my office doesn't do a crash-n-burn, we have a year's worth of creative backed up on it now. Actually, it's how we transferred the stuff from one ripoff...um, i mean...agency to another. It now is in its original box tucked away in a file cabinet drawer.

It's all anecdotal, I don't think of my experience as statistically sound, but my one take-home is never to trust any of these things...I want to back up the backup of the backup! :-)

Funny how when I hear Juvenile sing "Back That Thing Up" it doesn't make me think of female posteriors as much as it reminds me of the fragility of data storage! :-)