I`m planning to buy "Seagate 120 GB Barracuda 7200.7 ST3120026A 8MB" - but I heard that this drive cause problems after 2 weeks of using. Does anyone know anything about it? Which 120gb HD do you recommend?

I need quick answer

I got the Seagate Baracuda V 120Gb ST3120023A. I have had it for over 1 month and everything is good. Its also very quiet

I would definitely go for an western digital drive. My last three where all wd (after I had some bad experiences with maxtor), they are in general fast, quite silent and you can count on them. Although the one I got now is only 80gb, I think I would recoment the 120gb, a friend of mine got one, never heard any complaints.

Future Shop here in Canada is selling 120 gig WD drives for what would amount to 99 US dollars.

Which bums me severely because I just bought two maxtor 120's about a week before Future Shop started selling WD.

Never had a problem with any of my maxtor drives though. But the WD drives are half the money for the same cache and speed to boot.

I have 8 of the 120GB Western Digitals and have had no problems with them - they are all the 2MB cache not the 8MB. If you are planning on using it as your principal OS drive then I would recommend the 8MB cache. The WD JB series (8MB cache) has been on storagereview.com leaderboard for quite some time.

The only thing I can say against them is that they are considerably louder than the seagates, as Jen mentioned. Going on another thread with Jen I looked up the noise levels between the two and was pretty suprised on how much quiter the seagates are. I guess it would be a trade off - here the WD are cheaper but more noisy. I think if I could get a seagate for the same price I would. Nothing wrong with WD in terms of quality but the seagates seem just as sturdy and more quite.

That's the one i have for some weeks, too. Really quiet and low surface tempereature ...
Comparing speed it's hard to say, but maybe the WD 1200JB is slightly superior, depending on the benchmark.
I'm satisfied, got what i want ... choose whatever you want ... If low noise is pretty important, get the Seagate. If it's easier for you to get the mentioned WD and low noise doesnt have highest priority, get that.
But choose an 8 MB cache model, speed and much longer warranty (3 instead of 1 years) are worth it.

I bought Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y120P0040611 - 8mb cache, ata 133, 3 years warranty, 120gb...

I have this drive, too. Running fine for over 2 months now, cool and quiet.

As a reseller of computer equipment, I can say that I have had the least complaints about Seagate drives. I have had the most complaints about Western Digital drives. Maxtor is in the middle.

@dewey1973

What have the complaints being on the WD? Having a few of them I'm curious what kind of problems people are having with them?

I'm in corporate sales so my customers are IT managers in medium and large businesses across the US. All I can really say is that most of the IT managers I talk to have a very negative opinion of WD drives. It is very common that they will request a quote for HDs and specifically tell me that they will not accept WD drives. If I ask why, they tell me they have had bad experiences in the past. I was originally surprised by this since before taking the job in sales I had always considered WD a premier HD manufacturer. I've been in sales for 4 years now I have never had an IT Manager ask me for a WD drive.

Sorry I don't have a more concrete list of problems with WD drives, but these IT managers have been working with computers for a long time and their reputations depend on the performance of their company's machines. I trust their judgments.

(Edited for spelling.)

I'm sticking with Seagate because i've had no problems with them. Had about 4 seagate hard drives over the years. At the moment i've got a backup 80 gig ATA seagate and two SATA V 120 seagate drives in a RAID 0 stripe. No problems.

I would have to say WD, as I have never had any problems with them. I have a 1gb 4800rpm, 5.4gb 5400rpm, 10gb 5400rpm, 40gb 7200rpm and a 160gb 7200rpm w/ 8 meg of cache, and I have not had any problems with the lot of them (knock on wood). The 160 runs a bit hot, but I wouldn't consider either of the 7200s loud. Just my two cents....

I own 2 computer stores and have sold all of the major manufacturers hard drives over the past 11 years. During this period at one time or another, each manufacturer managed to produce a drive that has outclassed the others in reliability and we consequently will sell primarily that brand. At the present time Seagate is by far producing the best quality and most reliable drive. We've had a failure rate less than 2% over the past year with their drives.

Personally, I use all brands at home and can say I've never experienced any problems with any of my hard drives (all brands). I believe it has alot to do with how you take care of them. Of the failures I've seen, most can be attributed to the 7200 rpm drives operating in an environment conducive to overheating. Older computer cases were not designed to dissipate the heat produced by todays components. Sufficient airflow is mandatory and periodically removing any accumulation of dust. Ensure there isn't any heat buildup at the top of your case and utilize a hard drive cooler. Of the major hard drive manufacturers, here's how they rate in reliability at our stores during the past year.

1. Seagate
2. Western Digital
3. Maxtor