Maxtor drives are okay but don't do weird things with them involving the security features. I've managed to some how totally and permanently it seems lock the drive to 9MB. It refuses to acknowledge the fact that it's actually a 120GB drive and also seems to think that none of the security features are set. *shrug*

IBM have a bad reputation from the Deskstar 60GXPs (60's I think? or was it 70's?) but they've sold their entire storage division to Hitachi now anyway. I've got no idea whether the new Hitachi drives are any good.

80GB is definately enough for the average desktop user. If they don't have broadband and therefore don't end up downloading huge files then even a 40GB would probably be enough.