The 64MB-cache WD "Green" drives are my current best recommendation for 3.5" mechanical drives, with the caveat that the 8-second default head park time has to be fixed (change it to 15 or 30 seconds).

These are quiet, low-power (despite the "green" name, they really do consume less power than the drives of old), and give very high performance. Yes, high-performance, despite the 5400rpm spin speed. These are nearly as fast as the current WD Black (7200rpm) drives for most stuff.

Edit: I have a single 1.5TB model in the MythTV box, and it is darned near silent in operation, yet can keep up with multiple simultaneous recordings and playback streams without dropping a frame (I've tried 8 streams with it).

And thus far, they do seem reliable enough. Much better than recent Seagate drives, for example.

Cheers