Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

[VillageIdiot02]

I am going to be building a new computer soon. Hopefully I will have the money when Half Life 2 is released. [And hopefully the crew at Transgaming Technologies will have Cedega ready for HL2 soon after its release.] I have been researching processors and memory and chipsets and all that jazz, but one thing I am not seeing covered very well are Hard Drives.

I wanted to see what recommendations can be made for Hard Drive Manufacturers. What brands have you had the best luck with?

Currently I am running a system that is 2 years, 7 months old. (And for some strange reason, eats power supplies, I'm on lucky number three now.)

AMD Athlon XP 1600+
ASUS A7M266 (AMD 760 Chipset)
512 MB DDR 2100
3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 <--[Don't die laughing]
ATI TV Wonder
SB Audigy 2
Promise Dual IDE (Ultra 100 TX2)
Western Digital (WD153BA)
IBM Deathstar 80GB (IC35L080AVVA07-0)
Plextor DVD+/-RW (PX708A)
Plextor CD-RW (PX-W4824TA-SW)
D-Link 10/100 NIC (DFE-530TX)

I am considering the Western Digital Raptor drives but I am open to suggestion. I understand that quite a few people are having good luck with the S-ATA drives, and when there is a problem, it's usually the chipset, or lack of support for it, that causes the problem.
Any suggestions or comments?

[sailor]

I am a fan of Western DIgital...never had a problem with them...just bought a WD 80 gig drive to replace a old drive that currently has my FC2 installl on it...

[carbo18]

I think your choice of the WD Raptor is a good one. Best drive on the market.

Here is a good site for hard-drive reviews.

http://storagereview.com/php/tiki/ti...ge=LeaderBoard

BTW What brand of power supply do you use? I'd recommend SPI or Antec.

[Ug]

Moved from General Support to Hardware.

I've always tended to buy whichever brand gives me the most storage for the least amount of money!

[Xeophonix]

In regards to SATA drives, I have a Seagte Barracuda that uses the Silicon Image (SiI 3112) SATA RAID Controller from my Abit Nf7-S motherboard, no problems at all. Yes, you are right, it is usually the controller that is the problem with SATA drives.

I would say Seagate based on the fact they are the oldest in the business and generally are one of the most popular (they are cool and quiet) I would also go along with Western Digital and also Maxtor.

[jeru]

Whichever one still has a 3 year warrenty and has the most storage, fastest rpm, and most cache for the price...

[VillageIdiot02]

Heat isn't going to bother me a whole lot as this next system I'm building will be entirely water cooled. (If I could find a water cooled PSU, I'd use it). For a couple of years my computer has been louder than my fan, so noise level is #1 priority on the next system. I'm moving all of my other PCs out of this room so that when I need to work, I can do it quietly. Besides, with SSH and VNC, it's like my boxes are here anyway.

[imdeemvp]

i always use maxtor....warranty for upto 4 years if you register....and i never had problems with the computers i had assembled for other people using maxtor hard drives...