My WD 10EACS has developed bad sectors in four months of usage, and it was used as a backup drive. Ran only once a week. Another WD640AAKS arrived dead out of the box, but replacement was quick and I was upgraded to a 750AAKS at the time. Out of the 5 WD drives I have, two are dead. Haven't bought Seagate recently, but I've had only one drive die of the ~12-15 Seagates I have ever bought. I'm just staying away from them for all the horror stories, though my personal experience is telling me WD is still more unreliable. Statistics cannot be based on personal experience, though it is my understanding that quality in general is on a downward slope, and not just of hard drives (or computer hardware).
On the quality front, it's a crapshoot whichever way you look at it. The difference is the better RMA support for WD (I think Seagate started home pickup too nowadays). For sensitive data, back up frequently and maintain multiple backups. There is no substitute for redundancy.
On the quality front, it's a crapshoot whichever way you look at it. The difference is the better RMA support for WD (I think Seagate started home pickup too nowadays). For sensitive data, back up frequently and maintain multiple backups. There is no substitute for redundancy.