Greetings, my experience is definitely ... HDD Western Digital. The use for years. And OCZ Vertex SSD.
I had a WD Mybook fail the controller, and I had to break it open to put it in my desktop. WD hard drives are fine, but I won't buy another WD external since that controller quit.. I have good luck with Seagate drives also
See? You always found polarized opinions about anything including your topic... Then this confirm my initial premise: Don't prefer a specific brand.
It doesn't matter what hardware type is the topic - drive, memory, video card, motherboard, power supply, etc. Read enough reviews on Newegg, Amazon, etc. and you will always find the same two responses: 1 - "I've used ABC brand for years. But recently XYZ brand have lowered their price to where I couldn't resist. I bought a XYZ and it failed a week after I bought it. Screw XYZ. Never again. Going back to ABC. Never should have switched." 2 - "I've used ABC brand for years. They always used to be good, but the last two I bought failed. ABC quality control has gone to hell. Using XYZ brand now with zero problems. Never going back to ABC." When it comes to storage medium, they all can fail. Redundancy is paramount. Over the decades I've used every brand of hard drive. They have all failed at one time or another. It doesn't matter, I realize no storage medium is 100% forever. Don't ignore reviews, but don't take them too seriously either.
This is 100% true. I have bought both WD and Seagate and simply cannot say that one is superior. For me, what matters is price and performance. I am totally indifferent to both, though in recent years, my purchases have been skewed towards Seagate.