>>>One small issue with this poll is that, if the percentage of failures was exactly the same for all >>>brands, then the most popular drives would get the worst marks.
>>>So far Samsung looks like the most reliable drive. How many of you have ever owned a Samsung?
I have already owned a few, for many years now... Guess my first Samsumg was an old 3.4GB. Since that time, I've had my fair share of Samsumg drives, they are very common in Brazil. I currently own a 20 GB Samsumg, for more than 2 years already, it has been my primary drive until I bought a 40GB Maxtor 5400 rpm a few weeks ago. Now it's supposed to become my backup drive, or extra storage space for music and pictures

. It still works perfectly (knock on wood), not a single bad cluster yet...
Some friends of mine have different opinions on that matter, but personally, I have never had a Samsumg HD fail on me before I finally decide to get rid of them, after some 3-5 years of loyal service on a daily basis, as primary, secondary, and even as mobile-rack-mounted HDs.
My current (new) configuration is:
Duron 1GHz@1.133 (8.5X133), Soyo K7VTA Pro
1st HD-Maxtor 40GB, ATA100;
2nd HD-Samsumg 20GB, ATA66;
3rd HD (rack-mounted)-Quantum 12GB, ATA66;
4th HD-Western Digital 8.4GB(also rack-mounted); This one, together with my old K6-500 cpu, will soon replace my children's PentiumMMX 200 w/ 3GB HD gamebox.
As you can see, I do put my HDs to use for a very, very long time...