While I've had just the opposite than most, every WD drive died on me prematurely, while all my maxtors have out lived thier warranty (The original 3 yr warranty) by 2 or 3 years. PLUS, I hate the fact that WD drives have to have a jumper set for master, slave, or SINGLE. Every other manufacturer works just fine with Master and slave, but with WD you have to set it to single if it the only thing on the cable. Minor annoyance, but when you are swapping drives around a few times a day, it gets **** annoying fast.