Avoiding HD failure
Bad batches are unavoidable, but all in all, my experience with current drives, compared to drive of 10 and 15 years ago, is similar. I for one, never lost a single drive in 20 years. This is why:
1- Every drives have its fan. I never ran a drive without a fan, period. Never saw a temperature over 35C-38C, even under heavy usage condition, even for 10K RPM raptor drives. In normal usage, the temps are never over 5C to 10C above ambient.
2- Power supply with very clean output. I've been exclusively using Seasonic power supplies for a long time now. They are king of the hill. Seriously, noting comes close. (just take a look at JonnyGURU review of the X-560 gold for example, you won't regret this great read) and used either Antec or Enermax before. Clean electric supply goes a long way preserving your electronics.
3- UPS to avoid wild electrical fluctuation. Again, help a lot not to hammer your electronic component with out of spec electric input or sudden power cut and then immediately goes back up way too high.
4- My drives in my server and SAN are mounted on rubber support to reduce vibration. In a corporate environment (as opposed as industrial environment) this is less critical than the first 3 point, but still help.