I've always turned to storage review - I really don't know of any other that is as dedicated to covering hard drives. I wish they'd get back to covering opticals too - but there are a couple of sites doing those. Once I've seen what SR has to say, I'll search around for other reviews on Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, and a few others. I'll also browse the user reviews on sites like newegg - you might have to wade thru lots of those to get to some negative ones.
.bh.