Lets just remember that IBM doesn't make their drives any longer. Hitachi does. I run an IBM and a WD. It's all a matter of times for each. Each has had their bad periods. I haven't been systems on a large scale for about 2 years, but when I did I had the most problems with WD, Seagate had a few, Maxtor was descent and IBM had the fewest RMAs. I don't know how it is now, but if I had to go with one I would go Maxtor or WD definately. We are talking IDE of course. SCSI is a different subject all together.