2 plate drives

[#1]

I used to buy disks with more plates but I stopped doing that as it seemed the more plates the shorter the live of the disk.

4 plate disks are about as many as you can put in the form factor, however I have seen a competitor put 5 plates in a drive. I cannot speculate on how long it lasted.

Today most of my disks are 2 plate (4 head) disk assemblies. These seems to be reliable. I wonder if 3 plate models are now joining the 4 plate disks in the graveyard?

Of course cheaper models may have a single plate. I dislike that practice as it tends to be more of a disservice to the end user down the road. 2 plates are better as there is lots of storage.

My netbook came with a 160 GB disk but I replaced it with the WD3200BEVT I purchased as new previously. The disk was in a USB case when I bought the netbook.

2 plate disks are fine for the desktop and the portable.

[#2]

if they use quality materials you will not have any problems...  depends how lucky you are... i have a wd20ears with 4 platters and is running great since day one... was thinking of buying one with 3 platters and seen so many reviews about lemons in newegg and i gived up...  My 4 platter hard drive is still stable with 3.5 years with only one bad sector

i have very old hard drives from twenty years ago and they are still running fine without any bad sectors and have several platters