On the subject of hard drives.....
Over the years, I've used every make of hard drive, as far as I know, and I've had failures from every brand - except one.
I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much the brand name/designer that was responsible for failed hard drives, but rather the factory where they were manufactured in batches.
I figured as a consumer if I got a HDD from a good batch, I was lucky, if I got a faulty drive or one that failed after a while, it was bad luck and I had to go through the painful process of RMA'ing a disk.
In the days of IDE 100ATA HDD's, IBM disks flew, they were the best. Unfortunately, they had the highest failure rate. I myself RMA'd three of them. IBM HDD manufacture has now been taken over by Hitachi, they've had good reviews, but still, with me, the doubt remains. Which is probably an unfounded doubt.
I've seen constant arguments/recommendations/affirmations/ouut and out insisting that one brand of hard disk is better than another. I think that's a pile of tosh. I still say it depends on the factory/batch.
And the brand that's never failed on me? I must just say that I've seen lots of complaints/reports on this brand of hard drive failing, across lots of forums, so they do fail. But, for me, maybe I've been lucky with.... Maxtor drives