I want to add some space in a few of my players. Fujitsu and Toshiba drives are the cheapest I've found. Any opinions on which to use? I can get Travelstar drives for about $5 more too, so what do we think about those?

Current model Fujitsu laptop drives are very very quiet, use very little power, and just run and run.. Dunno about Toshibas, and the Hitachi/IBM ones have been troublesome in the past for me.

That said -- my mini-ITX server uses an 80GB Fujitsu drive, and my main laptop uses an 80GB Hitachi Travelstar. Both drives are less than a year old.

Cheers

My 80 gig IBM^H^H^HHitachi Travelstar has been working in my empeg for probably over a year now. Though, I seem to remember hearing when IBM drives die, they die hard. But that was for desktops and that was a long time ago.

(I also heard IBM drives were made by Western digital and were essentially like the Lexus of Toyotas or the Acura of Hondas; essentially the same just costing more. so if that is totally false, then my above statement can't be too well trusted.)

The only laptop HDD thats ever given me problems was a 30Gb Ibm/Hitatchi Travelstar. It was a heat related problem on this boot drive, but happenned quick. I was able to get the important data off by placing it on another systems IDE chain and repeatedly freezing it with dust-off (sprayed upside down). Took about to a week of repeated sessions.

After that I'd stay with the Fujitsu or Toshiba. I read a few unimpressive reviews about the Segate, anyone tried one of those yet?

I've had three 20 Gig IBM/Hitachi drive go bad. Maybe thery're better now but IBM is not getting my money.

I just bought a 60 Gig Toshiba for $80 and it is very quiet and hopefully will last.

EDIT: Had Fujitsu and Hitachi switched. My piont is the IBM Travelstar drives I had sucked

I have a Seagate 100GB in my empeg right now. Have only been using it for just over a month though.

Previously, the highest-rated 2.5" drives were definitely IBM Travelstar (before that division was taken over by Hitachi). Consistently they carried the higher price premiums because of it. I used a 30GB model in my empeg for a few years. Now my brother has it in his. I have also been using a Fujitsu 30GB for over two years (it's sitting next to the Seagate).

Bruno

WD? I don't think so.. IBM has their own drive manufacturing plants. used to be in rochester minnesota.. they moved some of the stuff to ireland for their new glass platters.. that's when they had the huge failures of the 75GXP models.. i think they shut down that plant because of total mis-managment by the people there. then sold all the tech to hitachi (who has been cross-licensing IBM stuff for a long time.. making very solid high-end server stuff)

I still have the original IBM Travelstar HDDs in my empeg. It's been over two years now and they work without a hitch - considering I'm playing several hours every day. There is a catch however - I have installed a cooling fan.
Fujitsu is very quiet drive compared to Toshiba. I've had Toshiba 2Gb drive fail on me, but it wasn't final. The drive was failing intermittently and I was able to back up the data before ditching it. I agree that when IBM drive fails, it fails hard. I've had 1.7 Gb drive which gave me a good run for 5 years. Later it gave me a "click of death".
These days I just put a dedicated cooling fan for the hard drive and forget about it.