I had five Seagates fail in my Synology NAS in less than a year. Somebody suggested it was a "bad" firmware on that model, but I switched to WD and haven't had a single failure since.
Incompatibilities between the drive firmware and the device they're in can cause problems.
Subtle harmonic issues with how the drives are mounted, which might be fine for some drives and disastrous for others.
I've always found the best strategy with mechanical hard drives is to have various brands and models in the same device on RAID.
Drives are interchangeable for a reason. :)
1. catastrophic flood in my apartment when drive was on the ground
2. a drive in an external enclosure on the ground that I kicked by mistake while it was spinning
I'm glad I've never had y'all's problems.
That said, my four 2Tb Barracudas still going fine after many years (10+). One failed, replaced with a green. Big mistake, that failed quickly and I went back to standard Barracudas.
They don't get used intensely though.
Yet I've got Toshibas that run hot and are loud as heck that seem to keep going forever.
I never had problems with Seagate Exos or WD Red or even the WD shucked White Reds.
It’s interesting how different the experiences are, some swear by a specific brand.