A lot of people have commented on the fact that 'all brands have drives that fail'. Well, of course that's true. But some brands clearly have higher failure rates than others. And Western Digital is right up there at the TOP of the list...just as the Quantum Fireballs were, in their heydey. The tendency to fail is higher among these brands, and somewhat lower on other brands - IBM, Maxtor, etc.
Maxtors, overall, tend to be more reliable drives. Period. Sure, some of us wiill have Maxtors fail at some point, if we use them long enough...but having spoken to a man that has SOLD *and* REPAIRED *and* RECOVERED all kinds of drives over the past 20+ years, he only confirmed what I already knew about WD drives...I tend to trust a man with that amount of personal experience. Glad y'all are happy with your WDs, but when they break down, please post about it in OFF-TOPIC.
Personally - I have NEVER been unable to recover from a problem with any Maxtor drive - or at least to salvage the data and re-format and continue to use it. On the other hand, I have had a WD drive pass away after moderate use (ALL data gone), and a Quantum Atlas drive that died after 5 years usage (ALL data salvaged - Maxtor took over the company, and replaced the drive just before the warranty expired).
If I had a choice of 2 drives with identical specs and one was a WD and the other a Maxtor...I would choose the Maxtor even at TWICE the price any day...wouldn't trust my important data to anything less. Well, maybe certain IBMs, but then I'd need earplugs to go with them noisy lil buggers