As you may know I was considering upgrading, now I have remembered I have 2 x cheques to pay in from my birthday and didn't actually get a pressie from my parents (LOL, didn't notice!)

Anyway, was reading comp active as they said ukzan has the following:

http://www.ukzan.com/ZDisk.htm

So:

That is extremely cheap, you'd struggle to get a similar spec IDE drive for under £100.

I would be concerned about component quality at that price though. Having seen people have problems with hard drives and the problems it causes, I think I'd be inclined to stick with Maxtor, as I have found them to be exceptionally reliable and last as long as you would ever need.

Well who do you think makes the HDD? Not many poor manufacturers AFAIK produce 250gb drives....! It's only dead cheap for promotion, I missed it sadly just hoping more will come back!

ive had Maxtors die after 6 months and they well noisey

Maxtor have upgraded their 250MB drive to 16MB cache, so it is unlikely to be their drive. Could be the IBM/Hitachi or maybe a Seagate.

I know what you are saying Dave, there are always exceptions. I've had too many bad experiences with buying cheap products and products from either lesser known manufacturers or generic own branded products, it has put me off somewhat. Surprising then that I bought a Fiat.

As a company we use Maxtor, Seagate, and Hitachi, but then we take their 'enterprise class' drives... All drives from all manufacturers have issues, and to be honest the bigger more well known ones tend to have a higher percentage share (mass manufacture and all that brings)..... Personally I've had good experience of Western Digital and maxtor, and mixed experience of Seagate.

I wonder if Ukzan make their own disks or if they're OEM'ed and stuffed in their own housings - I've not heard of them as a disk manufacturer (and there aren't that many companies out there actually making IDE disks).....

The same company uses a SATA HDD in one of their machines (250GB) - maybe the same one.

The fact is, no bad manufacturer really makes 250gb drives. I bet not even John can beat that price in the US?

I usually wait until I have had two bad experiences with the same manufacturer. For example I had a Samsung DVD drive and a Samsung Camcorder, both of which were crap from day one and had constant problems. Of course, if I had ten Samsung products that had been fine between the two mentioned, I would probably still buy Samsung products.

My other purchasing strategy is that, if I have had products from a manufacturer and never had problems with them, I will look for their products before considering the alternatives. It it this strategy I use with hard drives. As soon as I have a problem with a Maxtor drive, I will consider the competition. Obviously if something is more suitable for my needs I will consider it over my favoured manufacturer, but it would have to be something I really wanted.

I had a Maxtor Diamond Max 120GB Hard Disk which failed after 3 months, was replaced by a brand new one under warranty which was shipped direct from Holland and then I sent my duff one back for £8, this one is lasting longer so I maybe just got a Monday morning drive the first time.

Liam