What is the best hard drive manufacturer based on reliability, performance, customer service, warranty/RMA etc.

The only drive I don't like is Maxtor.
The WD Raptor is awesome.
I don't know enough about Fujitsu and Samsung.
Seagate needs to work a little harder to get back on top.

I've been using mostly WD since 1989. The last time one died was in 1992.

Seagate has 5-year warranties (WD only 3-year). This is a plus, but TBH after 3 years I'll be very tempted to replace a disk anyway and install its bigger brother in there. The sweet spot is now 750 GB. What was it 3 years ago, 120 GB?

Fujitsu is on my black list after I bought some "16x" DVD+R disks from them and they worked at 8x or even 4x. Of course, their hard disk division has nothing to do with that, but I don't care

Hitachi disks cost 3 times more than very similar WD disks, at least where I live. I'd give them a chance, if they cost the same as the WD.

If i could vote twice id go Seagate nad WD but went with WD cause i have more of them without fail.

hmm To me I am having a good experience with samsung lately because i bought about 5samsung HDD's they never gave me trouble even with rough use. Maxtor and seagate has died on me.I think hitachi is good too but bit noisy.OLD Quantum Fire balls are great HDD's anybody remember them ???

Haha Fireballs... ive still got 2 that work... They are AWESOME

BigFoot are the best!

Seagate... thats why they are #1

I've used WD, Seagate, and Samsung extensively, and I have been pleased with all of them. The Samsungs are probably the quietest, followed by the Seagates, then the WD. WD is the only manufacturer I;ve had die on me recently, but they also make my oldest drives, so that doesn't count.

Western Digital or Seagate.

I got 2 fireballs also all these time I have formatted them them more than 30 times ad they are working almost 24*7 and they are working withot a problem ..... But bit noisey

over here, seagate is usually 5€ more expensive than WD
but Seagate has a 5 year waranty...

IMO Seagate wins

and why hasn't this vote bug been fixed yet? (not being able to see your results)

I don't think there's a significant difference between any of the manufacturers... I know that Maxtor was sub-par several years back, but then Seagate bought them so there shouldn't be any difference between Maxtors and Seagates.

Seagate hands down for me. Only company of all my drives that hasn't died yet, Have around 5 seagate drives, two of them are 6 years old in a raid 0, still purring along. So far half of my WD drives have died. You can't beat seagate's warranty either. WD only supports 5 year on a select few HD's (Raptors mostly).

Based on my personal experience, I would say IBM. They sold their hard drive division to Hitachi.

Why IBM? My 60GB IBM Deskstar 75GPX has lasted from 2000 to summer 2007 without any problems. I finally decided to retire it, but I still have it.

I had problems with WD; two 160GB HDDs developed bad sectors and became 130GB and 140GB HHDs.

I bought 1 Seagate 80GB hard drive which died within 3 months. The replacement has been performing fine though.

One Hitachi 160GB hard drives died, replacement is fine.

Maxtor is by far the worst and is permanently blacklisted. 4 failed drives in 3 years.

i'm totally amazed by the number of votes Seagate got.

When i was a teenager, i used to work for an OEM as a technician, and within the company, Seagate was always considered the cheapest/least quality option.

And where is IBM? HP/Compaq? Quantum? Adaptec? CMS? Overland?

I'm sure at least a few of you guys have seen HP/Compaq fiber channel drives. They are second to none. You will only see them in the top of the line Proliant servers.

Adaptec SAS drives are the best in the world. Don't believe me, ask IBM.

I think this topic should have been called "What is the best mainstream hard drive manufacturer"

And for that i stand strongly against WD.
But I must say that Seagate has a very good warranty department