> I wonder if it's just a case of each of us having one HDD of a particular brand fail on us violently, and then finding others who were in the same boat. That

> I wonder if it's just a case of each of us having one HDD of a particular brand fail on us violently, and then finding others who were in the same boat. That is absolutely the case and anyone with enough experience could confirm it. Both WD and Seagate have made some real trash drives, and both made at least one or two models that were trash at scale. If you timed it just right you could jump from one to another and experience massive failures with both! You also probably have a drive from each that's been running for 20 years somehow.