My experience with hard drive problems have been with BATCHES from manufacturers.
As an example, about a year ago I got *several* bad Maxtor drives all in a row. They were the same size/series/etc., and they all developed the same errors. RMA'd, got new ones, and they've been problem-free ever since.
Several years ago it was Western Digital who had the series of bad batches. Practically every WD drive I saw for a couple of months was full of troubles. RMA'd them, got replacements, everything was happy again.
Point being, just because you had a bad experience with any given kind of drive (brand/model/etc) doesn't indicate that there will always be troubles with that brand/model/etc. Bugs happen, they get found, they get fixed, and life goes on.
Bump for another hot deal.
Jason