I would only trust WesternDigital or IBM for HDDs, seeing how IBM makes WD's HDDs any way... Have never once had a problem with any of my WDs, all but the one I dropped...
I have 2) 120GB and 1)80GB in my system now, and all 3 have been running great non-stop for over a year now. As for the noise, LOL cant really tell over my CPU fan
Any way... Go with WD or IBM for the best HDD.