All the current IDE hard drives are about the same in specs and performance (IMHO), so the thing you need to look at the most is reliability (or price

).
In terms of reliability, here's what I rank the companies from best to worst:
1. Maxtor - The new DiamondMax 60 line is very well made, and Maxtor is excellent with their Customer Service. Only a couple of drives ever died on me....but that was sorta an user error.
2. Western Digital - The "BB" drives are good, I've had only a few die on me before, and they replaced it quickly.
3. IBM - The 75GXP line made a bad name for them in terms of reliability. The 60GXP line is currently showing some signs of the 75GXP...lots of RMA's.
4. Seagate - They should stick to SCSI.
Once again, this is my opinion only and based on the numerous IDE drives I've tested and used before.
Enjoy.
