"3T39" writes:

the data recovery bussiness) that WD drives are undergoing some problems
right now, and Seagate are the clear favourites.

WD and Maxtor both have had well-known problems where the firmware will corrupt
the on-disk "GLIST", the defect list, and the drive will no longer function.
Some Russian company sells a device that repairs such drives, but it costs ~$3K
IIRC.

Not claiming any brand is better than the other, but I have had a
disproportionate number of failures in both Maxtor and WD over the years.
Also, this was the first time a Maxtor drive had failed "clicky" on me, a trait
usually reserved for WD - I had always preferred Maxtor of the two since
usually the failure was not as catastrophic. Oh well. I've been buying Seagate
ATA drives for a while now and that will probably continue.