I gotta say, I have had no prob with either Maxtor or Western Digital, I use Maxtor as my Primary and Western Digital as a backup, but it is small and slow.
If we are going to get into HDD Manufacturer bashing then I have got to place IBM in the direct firing line, I had a IBM DTLA 307030, no end of problems it went bellyup a few times, recovered it using the IBM Drive Fitness Test, then finally last week it died on last time, the noises it was making, they really do let you know they arent happy.
I cant be bothered sending it back to IBM so anyone got any Hex-Star screw bits, I wanna take this thing apart and see if I can find how it was making the noises. I've kinda always wanted to see a Hard Drive internals myself. Play with them a bit, and learn their basic mode of operation, and things like that.
Dont direct me to any sites explaining how they work for me, I know how they work I want to see it and things like that.