>Hitachi seem to me to be the most reliable drives around.

Just goes to show how personal bias/experience can colour these things.

After a bad experience of IBM/Hitachi drives repeatedly failing (and a few Samsungs too) I am loathe to touch either manufacturers drives .

Personal choice has always been for Maxtors with Seagate being second choice alongside WD.

The good thing is though, looking at the review, I am pleasantly suprised at how close they are to each other, we never had it so good :)