I think they're all pretty much the same. It's sorta like your choice of preferences, just like Polo RL, Tommy HF, DKNY, Addidas, Nike, BK, New Balance, etc. I've had my Seagate over 2 years already and it still going smooth.
That depends. Are you referring to internal or external HDD. If you are referring to Internal drives then I'd say Seagate and Western Digital are on par, with Maxtor a very close second. This is assuming that you are matching drives of the same specs. Whichever gives you a better bang for your buck you can go with. The long warranty on Seagate is however quite attractive and makes it favorable. But if you crave speed then the Western Digital Raptor (10,000rpm) HDDs are considerably faster than their counterparts(7,200rpm). If you're referring to External HDD then though the actual HDD might be the same you now have to look at the drive enclosure, does the drive overheat easily (because of inefficient cooling within it's enclosure), what ports does the drive offer(ie firewire, USB 2,etc), how noisy the drive is & what software is it accompanied by & data transfer rate. Hitachi also makes good drives but you didn't ask about this brand. So far I've had a Seagate, Western Digital, IBM, Maxtor and & Hitachi.
