We still hear comments about specific brands and models but the lessons on these are always learned after months or years of the devices being sold. We can stil

We still hear comments about specific brands and models but the lessons on these are always learned after months or years of the devices being sold. We can still ask the question, sure. But a more practical lesson seems to go for redundancy because this will still happen to us: Not purchasing all items from one manufacturing lot; Not pairing more items from one lot than you can afford to loose; Staggering device lifetime when possible; Running long tests when putting in service; Keeping an eye on drive statistics once in production and acting on them; Running schemes (RAID, backup, whatever) where it's actually practical to replace one device while in operation; Testing schemes so they will actually work out; Effective backups; Being ready to lose the cost of occasional drives; etc.