On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 20:02:31 -0500, Andrew J. Rozsa
<rozsa@usa.invalid>:

Note that LaCie doesn't manufacture hard disks. They just make boxes
to transform a IDE internal hard disk into an external one.
Unfortunately, it seems that the design of these boxes is faulty,
since they don't allow enough cooling, and thus make the hard disks
overheat.

For internal hard drives, Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung seem
pretty reliable. However, whatever the brand, you might get the bad
one of the lot.
I've had trouble with a Seagate; other have had trouble with other
brands. You never know.
I have more than ten "older" (i.e. before May 2005) Maxtor hard disks
(home + work), from 120 to 250 GB, and all work well. But I've had
three post-May-2005 250-GB Maxtor hard disks (apparently from the same
line), and the three were faulty -- for two of them, I couldn't even
format them.

No hard disk is really reliable, so make frequent backups, and use
RAID when necessary.
Usually, a hard disk that has worked perfectly 24/7 for a few months
can be considered a bit more reliable than the others.