My largest IDE drives are one Seagate 750GB, one WD 500GB, and one Seagate 250GB.
For me the most valuable of these is the WD 500GB because I ended up hardly using it, so it should have basically a full life left in it still. I don't think it even reached 1K hours yet.
The 750GB was a lot more heavily used. I got it for TV recording in my nForce2 system back then. I read about problems people had with SATA on that board so I deliberately opted for the IDE version. By that time nForce2 was outdated and most newer boards probably had native SATA. The nForce2 doesn't, it's boards only get SATA by using an external PCI controller chip. IDE is integrated in the southbridge so it's preferable on those boards.
When I disconnected the 750GB IDE I think (distant memory) Windows had logged a few errors. I never observed a problem, but technically it might be starting to go a little funny.
I've thought the Seagate 750GB would be ideal to plug into my PS2 console, but that drive draws a lot of power. It got a lot of bad reviews on Newegg/etc. I think the reason mine lasted was because my PC case kept it cool with a fan.
The PS2 hard drive cage is a joke - it puts the hard drive in a box with a few tiny slits on one side (and not the other). I don't think a higher powered drive like that 750GB would live long unless I did some ugly hack to blow air through there. And then I wonder about the PS2's power supply.
Anyway, the PS2 has a 128/137GB limitation, there's some workaround but I don't know what's involved. I just stuck a 120GB in mine.
I think a SATA-IDE adapter would require using a 2.5" drive to make room for the adapter. But that's probably a good idea anyway since it also mitigates the heat/power issue.
As for SATA, I'm starting to sense that I'll be left with several extraneous 2TB drives soon. My file server holds video files on several drives using SnapRAID, but the 2TB drives are starting to get pushed out in favor of bigger ones.