i hear lots of stuff from people saying "avoid this drive, or this make of drive" and TBH, i have not found any that borked more than the other, that is, i have never found any really bad make.
WD drives tend to sound like the head has fallen off the platter, and is banging against something.
Seagate drives can sometimes make a loud click before jumping into operation, and i remember Fujitsi and Samsung drives making a loud whine. the bes thing to extend the life of drives, is cooling. I have a 12 cm fan that moves about 22CFM of air at 17dba over a raid array, and my drives seem ok, they never get over about 42 degs.
so, there you go, there are no trully 'bad' drives. its just a lottery
