The MaxLine III's (7V300F0) with VA111630/670 firmware currently timeout
on a weekly or less basis..

I have just one 7V300F0, so no idea how it behaves is a RAID. It's
been fine apart from the fact that my VIA southbridge SATA controllers
doesn't even detect it ... :(
(Anyone else notice compatibility problems are through the roof lately?)

The 8x 6B300R0 (PATA) have been excellent on my PATA 3ware.
Untypically for Maxtor, not one has died yet (over a year) :)

The 8x 6Y120L0 (PATA) died at a rate of about two a year.

I mainly use Maxtor due to the fact that the RMA process is automated,
hassle-free and fast. They will exchange a drive when the first bad
sector errors start to show up and not insist on a low level format to
"fix" the problem.
The Atlas SCSI line they inherited from Quantum isn't half-bad either.

What happens now that Seagate has bought them nobody knows.

C.