> 
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 08:44:06PM +0000, MLH wrote:
>   | I ran across some Seagate 80G ATA V SATA drives last weekend for
>   | ~$120 at a local computer show. Best price until then I had seen
>   | was $160 for that drive.
> 
> Unfortunately, the SATA Seagate drives are based on the "cheaper"
> ATA models that only have 1 year warranty (and 2MB cache, but that's
> irrelevant to me).
> 
> Last I looked, the only current ATA Seagate drives with 3 year
> warranty is the 120GB ST3120024A (also has 8MB cache), and until
> they release a ST3120024AS (SATA version), instead of the
> ST3120023AS (1yr, 2MB) which is based on the ST3120023A (1yr, 2MB),
> I won't be buying SATA drives, even though I have a SATA capable
> system.
> 
> All that said, so far I'm extremely happy with the ST3120024A; they're
> fast enough for me (benchmarks are the usual +/-10% compared to
> competition), but they are extremely *quiet* and run fairly cool too,
> especially compared to the IBM IC35xxxAVER drives I was using in my
> 24x7 file server...

I have several of the ST340016A ATA-IV drives and have found them
to be extremely quiet, cool, and fast. As to 1-yr vs 3-yr, the
industry is simply having to move to a commodity drive/warranty.
I expect that before long, if you want more than a 1yr warranty,
you will have to purchase it separately unless you are a big player.
The drives themselves seem to be doing quite well, and their prices
make it easier to decide to gamble.