[Leica] I'm back and resubscribed

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

> Do you recommend any brand in particular and why?
> Seagate? IBM? Toshiba? Maxtor? Quantum?

During my time at Google, we bought and used hundreds of thousands of disks.
IBM were the least reliable. Seagate were the most reliable. Maxtor, Western 
Digital, and Toshiba were all about the same. We didn't buy any Quantum. I 
don't think that Quantum is still manufactured by Quantum; I think some 
other company bought the brand name and Quantum got out of the disk business.

But if you are using a disk primarily as backup, and it is idle most of the 
time (not spinning), then the brand hardly matters. Disk reliability only 
becomes an issue if the disk is actively in use.

The best way to make sure that a disk is idle is to connect it via Firewire 
or USB2 and then to disconnect it and put it into a storage box.