Well , free space that my 3x40GB HDDs (Seagate 7200.4 ST340014A, WD Protege 5400 WDC WD400EB, Samsung 7200 SV0411N) provide is now not enought for me. I decided to go for a 500 or 400 GB HDD, preferably SATA. I've even got a sheap PCI SATA/IDE RAID controller VIA VT6421A as my mobo doesn't have SATA. It works with IDE fine, don't know about SATA however, but pretty sure it will work*.

Now, the main question is: what drive to get?

I've heard and read lots of good things about Seagate 7200.10, but also lots of complains about 7200.8 and 7200.9 series (which now have no reason to be bought instead of 7200.10 though). Everything seems fine, but some after-pain still remains .
Another choice is Western Digital, and as for me - more preferable. WD has just started to produce a revised Caviar SE16 HDD line featuring 160GB plates instead of 100 & 107GB. They have model numbers of form WDxx00AAKS (instead of WDxx00KS), like WD5000AAKS (500 GB), which has 3 plates and 6 heads, while 400GB WD4000AAKS has 3 plates and 5 heads. As some people state, this WD5000AAKS (and hence WD4000AAKS too, I globe) is really (of course ) faster than 100 and 107GB versions, and some people even mention it is faster than 7200.10 500GB HDD. But as for me, that doesn't matter so much. I first of all need a reliable long-living storage device, not a speedster like WD Raptor (otherwise I just would buy it instead ). This WD seems to be a good choice, but I'm not that sure .

So what do you think: is this WD5000AAKS (or WD4000AAKS) worth buying or the previous generation drives like WD5000KS are still better? Or should I still look for some other variants? Does anyone have some WDxx00AAxx drive? What can you say?

Thank you!

* This is a subject to comment on

Hard drives are pretty much commodotized now. As you surmised, you wont see dramatic performance differences unless you throw a Raptor into the mix. Almost everyone offers 3 or 5 year warranties now. I know that's no consolation for lost data, but if you back up regularly, or use RAID 1 or 5 to survive the loss of a single drive, it's good to have that kind of no-questions-asked support. I've got a Segate .9 that has worked perfectly for about 6 months now, alongside a Maxtor and WD. No complaints for any of them.

Thank you very much for your answer!
Now I pretty sure I will buy this WD.

I favor WD's Caviar RE2 WD5000YS out of the slew of 500-giggers, but I have to agree that consumer HDDs have become commodities. Either you have one, or you don't... makes and models don't matter so much. Have fun with your new storage.

Samsung HD501LJ. Cheap, quiet, and cool running. The WD5000AAKS is marginally faster but you won't really notice without a benchmark program, telling you so.

I can't really tell you about something bigger than 320 (what I use), but for me there are only two brands that I'd consider: Maxtor and Hitachi. Never had any problems with any of those. I'd stay away from WD because I've hearn so many horror stories with them, but that's just an opinon.

i'm using a seagate 500 gig SATAII drive i got from newegg for $139, and it's great.

Can't beat the price, and it's fast enough to burn two different dvd's at once, which is all the faster i need. Believe it's max read is about 55-60MB/s, which is when it's been defragged nicely of course. No matter how much you spend on a drive, it'll be slow as dirt once the fragmentation starts in.

Fry's Electronic has Maxtor 500GB on sale for $109.99 this week.