Matt Mc_Carthy wrote in a message to JIM HOLSONBACK:

 MMC> As far as reliability, I don't think he's had a single one come
 MMC> back in the 6G to 40G sizes.  They were a wee bit slower in
 MMC> transfer rates than the competition, and he was forced to move on
 MMC> (and get burned often).

Nice to know,  if reliability is a bit more important than speed and other factors...

 MMC> If you want to hear him cuss and rant, ask about IBM drives!  
 MMC> :-((

Oh?  Come to think of it,  that one drive I had fail here was bearing their
imprint.  Though I understand it was actually made by Quantum.

 MMC> Just last week I built 16 systems with Seagate 7200 RPM 120G
 MMC> drives, five of them died before Win XP completed installing!

Jeez.

 MMC> He found that they had a 12 month warranty, and that Seagate 
 MMC> starts counting from 'date of manufacture'.  Five months of the 
 MMC> warranty was already gone BEFORE he even ordered them!

Can they do that?!  Is that even legal?

 MMC> With a "slow economy" lots of distributors are sitting on 
 MMC> warehouses full of stuff that's getting old fast!

I guess!

The 6.4G drive in my linux box is a Seagate.  I'd been given a dead one, 
found out it was still under their (at that time 3-year) warranty,  and
sent it off,  to get back a refurbed unit that was carrying the remainder
of that 3-year warranty.  That was a few years ago now,  probably 1999 or
2000 or thereabouts,  and it's been running 24/7 for a good long time with
no problems.  Dunno if I'd want to buy any of their current stuff,  though,
 with that policy in place.

 JH> One reason I ask -  an Ebay seller I get a lot of items from now 
 JH> has a few Samsung HDD for sale - - mostly in the 4GB to 6GB size 
 JH> range.

 MMC> I don't recall being too fond of the 4G models, but I have been
 MMC> running three of the 6.1G Samsungs since Oct 1999 on this machine
 MMC> with no problems.  I run in 'stop-start' mode, that is, when I'm
 MMC> sitting here, the computer is on, when I go to work on something
 MMC> else, or go to sleep, the computer goes off.  I am on my third PS,
 MMC> and some new caps on the MB, but everything else has been just
 MMC> fine. 

I'm still looking for deals on drives.  Right now the sweet spots seem to
be around $69 more or less for 80G drives,  and around $79 more or less for
120G drives,  of different brands.  Of course,  in too many instances these
prices are "after rebate" and in some cases the amount of money
you need to lay out doubles the price!  I still don't wanna go there,  so
I'll wait until some computer show comes around,  and see what I can find
there.

---