Which Hdd?

I purchased a Seagate 2TB HDD 7200rpm for $85 before making any inquiry, then I noticed that Toshiba has a 1TB for $40 w/same specs (if as reliable I'd get two, one for Vista and one for Win 7). Next I noticed a WD 2TB "Mainstream" for $70. What's the benefit of one over the other?

I was steered away from Toshiba by a sales rep at Micro Center, but further investigation seems to tag Toshiba as a Hitachi brand. One high point for Toshiba is the 2 year warranty, where as the Seagate is just 1 year and the WD has the longest of the three.

 

And note that Hitachi is now owned by WD. That does not mean that all brands have the same guts inside, but it does suggest a relationship.

I no longer use HDs for storage but when I did, the warranty was most important to me and I generally looked for drives with 5 year warranties. Yeah, they cost more, but the security and integrity of my data is worth a lot more than the price and inconvenience of replacing a drive and restoring the data from backups.

 

Thanks for your quick and thoughtful response.