The deskstar drive units have had a bad press, there's no doubt abut that. One friend recently described them as deathstar drives because his experience has been so bad.

My experience has been as far removed as I could have hoped for. The drive, given it's price, is exceptionally good value for money. The size to £ ratio is very good indeed. The speed of the drive has been more than adequate, with average seek times producing admirable real-world results for my most common use, video editing. My own drive has been heavily partitioned to make effective use of the unit without dealing with the usual waste of space, something I'd highly recommend doing, especially for video editing.

One thing that's starting to concern me... which might prompt for update on this drive down the line is the odd clicking and whirring noises it makes. Not that they happen often, just every few days and for only a few seconds. But they've scared the heck out of people who've never heard them before thinking they've caused things to blow up.

Immediate verdict is good, in the long term I might be taking advatnge of IBMs superb warranty on the deskstar drives. Who knows!?!