First post here so I hope I'm in the right place.

I'm looking for suggestions for a SATA internal drive brand and specific model if you've got it.

I'm on a P4 with SATA available. Looking for speedy, reliable model (at least 500 GB). This is for the audio and video, not software.

Thoughts leaning in the direction of Seagate or Western Digital.

Had bad luck with external (FW) Maxtor drive reliability.

FYI: Friend on a Mac Final Cut Pro system recently had two Lacie external drives melt down so that brand is not on my list (if they even made internals).

Am I allowed more than one topic per thread? Have any of you ever heard of, or used, G-Tech Drives? For external drives the friend with the melt down was told to only use them in the future. I've asked my local associates (mostly on Avid systems) if they use them and nobody has even heard of them.

Thanks to all.

My first post as well I'm a bit concerned to see you had problems with the maxtor hard drive what were they? I have 200 Gb of video on mine should I panic ?

Firstly, welcome to two new posters.

Richard, the only time you ever need to panic is if your drive fails and you have no backup to recover from. The drive, in question, might fail one day. I don't imagine your specific drive is any less reliable than any other. Of course, we only ever hear the bad news stories don't we? I've got a couple of Maxtor's and they've both proved to be bullet-proof for the last threee years. So whether you need to panic or not depends entirely on your backup strategy. So what are you doing at the moment to backup/archive your data?

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I think all this good drive bad drive talk is bullshit. Any drive can fail so you should always back up impostant stuff as suggested above or run safe raid.

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Hi Richard and Alan,

Richard, as Alan said the only time to panic is if you don't have a back-up and the drive goes DOA.

You are backed-up, right?

To answer your question I've got the external drives from Maxtor including the 300DV FW unit.

In fact all of mine are FW, non offer USB, which is available on many models today.

I'm leaning in the direction (still not made the leap) of Seagate. Seems like the G-Tech drives are unknown.

On the subject of good vs. bad drives - of course some are more reliable than others. Just like any other machine made by different companies and even different models made by the same company can be more or less trustworthy.

It is the nature of invention and manufacturing.

For example, Apple has had a range of reliability results with iPods. All made by the same company but not all with the same service record.

Back on topic - most drives are very reliable, of course. But my first hand experience will keep me from buying Maxtor again. And the tale told by my friend with their Lacie drives rules them out too.

And while not perfect myself I do back-up!

Looks as if I will be taking a trip to my local PC shop to get another hard drive to back up on ! Will back up on Maxtor and new hard drive Belt & braces job
Can't be unlucky and have two drives fail Can I?

BORN FREE TAXED TO DEATH

richard you may want to consider back-up to optical media like dvd-r (instead or as well), but keep in mind that it is far from archival - not that our hard drives are, but many think of dvds and cds and the like as "forever" media and they are not.

good luck!

They will both fail if your house burns down, God forbid. Sounds extreme, but I know of some people who store their back-up hard drives in a completely different location.

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