I have had all brands in my pc and these are my experiences:
WD Ages old caviar ide 100 250gb hdd - Solid still after 4 years of heavy use ( 2400+ spin ups in it's life according to smart).
Hitachi dekstar 160 gb ide- Died after 4 and a half years of use with nearly 3000 spin ups.
Maxtor Diamondmax 10 plus sata - 3-4 years now, still solid.
2x Seagate 7200.10 250gb 16mb in raid 0, bought on release I think 3 years ago now, solid hdd's.
1x WD5000AAKS just a year old now I think- still solid.
1x Samsung F1 750GB, half a year old - still solid.
Done benchies too and the WD AAKS drive has a better seek time than the Samsung F1, while the Samsung F1 has a better sustained read. The 7200.10's seagates also have a better seek than the sammy. The Maxtor has a terrible seek time but quite fast sustained read. Thw oldest WD is slow, seek time is acceptable but sustained read is quite low.
I'd go for WD for my next drive tbh. I wouldn't avoid the others except the 7200.11 seagates as they have serious issues according to forums and the hitachi dekstars simply because I don't think a hdd should die only after 4 years of use, I still have 10 year old hdd's at home which are working fine.
