Every WD drive I ever bought for my own use died on me. I used to sell PC's as a side business until fairly recently and by far the highest failure rate was with WD drives. Seagates were decent, but still had some failures (particularly the higher rpm Baracuda line).
Toshiba drives (laptop drives in particular) have a high failure rate, too.
Hitachi drives were very good until Toshiba bought them. I haven't bought one recently, so I'm not sure if they've bacome as bad as the Toshibas or are still good, but worth researching.
Very early Samsungs died easily, but their quality improved quickly and they became the "go-to" brand for me until they were bought by Seagate (even then, I still use them).
Not sure what the latest WD drives are like nowadays, but I stay away on principle, since their track record with me has been absolutely appalling.
At the moment I would recommend a low rpm Samsung drive, based on personal and friend's experiences. It seems they are still a little better than the equivalent Seagates even though they are supposed to have been made by the same company (perhaps the QA is just a little better or the process or materials used are different somehow).
I'd also recommend looking into Hitachis, to see what people are saying about them since I don't have recent experience with them, but going on their old drives, they are worth a look.
Lower rpm drives have a lower failure rate in general.
TLDR: Get a low rpm Samsung, Seagate or Hitachi rather than any Western Digital or Toshiba.
