what is the best hard drive with around a 500 gig capacity?? i looked at the THG charts, but couldnt decide which was best..

though these two stood out

1) Western Digital Caviar se16 wd4000kd NCQ 400 gig
2) Hitachi 7k400 HDS724040KLSA80 400 gig

can anyone suggest any others?

depends on what you mean by best.

quietest
speed
latency
power usage
size
price

I like Seagates pretty well myself. Some of the Hitachi line dates back to the older IMB Deskstars, also know as Deathstars. As a result, I'm a bit leary of them, though I have one and its worked ok for about a year and a half. I've had mixed luck with Western Digitals. Their SATA connection is flimsy and more than one person, including myself, has had the connection break. Sometimes its only the plastic and you can superglue the line back on, sometimes it turns the drive into garbage. My Seagate has a much better connection in that reguard.

Just my experience and thoughts.

hmm ic well a seagate barracuda is a solid drive so i might just go with that then