[COLUG] Hard Drive Brands??

[Joshua Kramer]

Howdy Folks,

Considering hard drives on which you'd install Linux: which have proven to 
be most reliable?

The grapevine rates drive reliability thusly:

Seagate, new Hitachi DeskStars: Excellent
Maxtor, Western Digital: Bad

I'm looking for ~500GB SATA drive.

There are Western Digital GreenPower Caviar for $105 at MicroCenter. 
They have a 3 year warranty.  This is the first time I've seen 3 yr 
warranty on WD models... and the GreenPower series are relatively new. 
They claim a savings of 5 watts over the competition, which is something I 
consider important.  But they seem to alter between 5,400 and 7,200 RPM. 
I wonder if they're rated for 24x7 operation?

Cheers,
-j