[ale] The perpetual question: best current HDD?

[Derek Atkins]

Hey all,

I'm looking to replace some 1TB HDDs in a s/w RAID-10 array with some
2TB models.  The existing drives have been running flawlessly for a few
years, so they are due to get swapped out anyways.  I did have one disk
fail a year or so ago so it was swapped out, and I bought a cold spare
at the same time so I have one more spare (of the same type/model as the
replacement drive).  So I'm looking for another pair of drives that I
can use as the mirrors (so each mirror has one of type/batch-A and one
of the yet-to-be-bought set of drives).

Of course, when I bought the drives warranties were 3 or 5 years, not
the '1 or 2' years they are now.  So I'm looking for the "best value"
2TB drives available today -- lowest price for highest quality + good
warranty.  It looks like I can pretty much only choose between WD and
Seagate nowadays -- I guess lots of consolidation in the market?  (My
existing drives were Hitachi, which in my experience were always great
drives).

What's the current going theories and best practices?  Any concrete
suggestions (links to NewEgg or some other vendor would be appreciated).

:)

Thanks,

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available