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They aren't really identical. The Belgariad is more or less the story of Garion and his discovery of who he is. The basic plot line is first the quest to recover the orb, and then the defeat of Torak. It starts with Garion as a 14 year old boy and ends with him as a married man. The Mallorean has superficial similarities, they are both quests to complete prophecies and restore the universe to where it should be, but the stories and events are different.
It's been said there are really only five unique stories, everything else is just a variation of those five stories. What matters is what the writer does with those stories. My take is that Eddings was a very engaging story teller (I don't think that it is a coincident that one of main characters is first portrayed as a wandering story teller), which makes most of his books easy to read. That is why I find myself re-reading his books. It's not because I've totally forgotten the storyline, but rather how he tells it.
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