Please help choose a hard drive

[Booster]

Some time ago I had a Seagate Barracuda 4 40 GB hard drive, and was very happy with it. Then I upgraded my system and got myself my first HD issue ever - the WD 800JB. Sure the thing was fast compared to the Seagate, but it's spinning sound drove me crazy. I had to return the sucker to the shop. Got a Maxtor DiamondMax 9 6Y080P0 with fluid bearings. Was pretty silent and fast, but started to click the next day and show bad (reallocated) sectors. Returned it too and got a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80 GB I'm using now. The very moment I powered the thing on I realized how slow it was. At least twice slower than Diamondmax AFAIC. But OK, slow but silent and reliable so I could live with it. Now after 3 months slow mofo is showing more and more bad sectors, running slower than ever and making strange new noises. These crappy modern hard drives.
I'm fed up with these SOBs. Not to mention the 7200.7 is made in Thailand (the Barr. 4 was made in Singapore).
Anyways, now I'm in the market for a new hard drive. My options are somewhat severely limited since the motherboard would only take IDE drives (no Serial ATA connectors).
I want to find a cheap model around 80 or so GB since I don't really need more.
What I need is:
1. One platter drive so that no hard drive cooling would ne needed (I don't have any extra fans in the system and wouldn't want them obviously).
2. Fluid bearings since I need quiet operation.
3. Reliability.
4. Good speed.

Looked around and found that the WD 800LB could be my best bet since I generally liked the 800JB save for it's high RPM ball bearings. But I can't find the sucker for sale anywhere.

Any ideas? I wouldn't actually mind a reliable and non-clicking Maxtor if I could find one. Are there any good IDE drives left? What do they put in Macs anyway (since I don't think Apple would make use of some crappy drive)?
Thanks a lot for any answers.

 

[GhettoPeanut]

get us links to the above mentioned HD's

also, www.newegg.com is a good place to start, personally i'm a huge fan of any Maxtor HD, but i've had really good experiences with them. i've had an 80gig 72k RPM hd from them running with no flaws for about 3 years now. but like i said, newegg, heres a link to their HD section:
http://www.newegg.com/app/manufact.asp?catalog=14&DEPA=1

if you want an awsome HD, western Digital is another good one. i'm saving for this guy

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-160&depa=1

so awsomely orgasmic
but if this isn't for some extream gaming system, i'd go for a maxtor 72k, they are cheap, and huge, really the access time is for ppl like me who want everything to load up in 4 seconds.

 

[Booster]

Those models you mentioned are all SATA, no fluid bearings, not cool running plus their prices are out of my range. Now having done some search I'm leaning to Samsung Spinpoint P80 drives. Read a lot of good words about them. Don't know how reliable they are, though. I generally don't like Samsung monitors, CD drives and just about everything else they make. Are their hard drives any better quality than the rest of their product line? I highly doubt that.

 

[ribbon13]

When iss the last time you had a Samsung CRT? Thier video R&D is some of the best in the world.

These are popular in HTPC because they are quiet

 

[Booster]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
When iss the last time you had a Samsung CRT? Thier video R&D is some of the best in the world.

These are popular in HTPC because they are quiet

I'm not saying Samsung CRTs don't work. Unfortunately, they do. When I say quality I mean the looks and the finishing of plastic and overall feel of the product. Whenever I see anything made by that company, I got only one word to describe it - crap. So sorry no Samsung please.

 

[ribbon13]

Then you get Seagate... or M-systems for really really quiet.

 

[Sqube]

I just think you got a particularly bad sample of the Seagate, since it was apparently twice as slow as your previous drive.

If that's not an exaggeration, there was something wrong with the drive from the moment you got it.