So, over on another thread, I asked about a new case for my Linux box. I'm almost sold on the 3ware Escalade 8506-4LP card, along with a 4-way hotswap cage. In the short term, this will happily go into my existing case (once I take one of the CD-ROM drives out).

I need, of course, to get some drives to go in it. The dead drive that precipitated this upgrade is a Maxtor 4A250J0. I hope that it's an isolated occurence, since I've got the same model drive in my Windows box as well.

So: my question: what's a good SATA drive these days, primarily from a reliability point of view, but also from a price/capacity ratio? I'm not too bothered about speed, since it'll be for music and suchlike. Bear in mind that I'll want probably want 4 identical ones.

When looking at prefered hardware for HTPC systems, there are two brands/types for HDD: Seagate Barracuda and the Samsung SpinPoint series. Both are known as being low-noise and keeping cool (especially SpinPoints). Keeping your head (the HDD's) cool is also a factor when talking about realibility. Both are also know for having good price/GB ratio.

Comment regarding Seagate Barracuda and software controlled Acoustic Sound Management: due to patent conflicts the ASM has been disabled. For some OEM-models (for e.g. Dell) it is sometimes enabled. Therefor the SpinPoints are nowadays prefered over the Barracuda's in the HTPC-scene.

With regards,

Eize