For Storage Purposes., I'd go with Western Digital... specifically I'd recommend their Blue Series.
Red is optimised for Data Centre RAID Solutions (so it's best in a NAS)
Black is optimised for Performance not Longevity (it's the "Gamer" variant, but for Gamers there is only one choice for Physical Hard Disks; and that's the Seagate Barracuda Series; as it'll actually on avg. hit it's advertised Performance, rather than being just "Peak" that you can see)
Gold comes with an extended warranty, and is more aimed at CCTV or other Data Recorders
Green is optimised for Power Efficiency ("Eco Friendly", but I'd recommend Samsung Spinpoint instead; it's a good balance of longevity, low power and sleep access... as the name suggests the Plates don't actually stop spinning, instead they have low-friction bearings that allow it to keep momentum with very little energy when the drive heads are lifted; other "Eco" Drives tend to just power-down and take a few moments to spin back up before they can be accessed again)
Blue is the "Standard" Drive; they're basically very average in most regards, Performance, Longevity, etc. but they tend to be the best value for money.
You'll get a good 160 - 200 Petabytes of R/W Operations before it Fails; which trust me takes about a decade even if you thrash it with Content Creation... they're what I've gone with since WD retired their Raptor Series., but I've had an IBM / Western Digital for Storage Purposes since the Mid-90s, some of which STILL work just fine today in their original machines.
I really can't say the same for their competitors Samsung, Seagate, Fujitsu, Quantum, etc.
When it comes to Solid State however., I believe Samsung has the best reputation and technology at the moment... but mind I have also switched to WD Black for my OS SSD; as it has respectable performance, and I'm hoping it has the same great reliability that I've come to expect from their HDDs.
Still that's just something that'll take time to find out >_< only had it for about 2 years so far
That was something that originally put me off SSDs for a VERY long time though, as they've been around longer than most realise; but the original offerings had terrible shelf lives... and when they go back it's not like a HDD, where you have some warning and it tends to happen over say 6-18 months; so you have time to get a replacement and switch, when an SSD goes bad... whelp! that's a bricked PC until you get a replacement, and forget about recovering any data.
Mind that said originally SSDs were intended as more of a Caching Portion of a HDD., but they never really caught on, and the few that do exist are an "Okay" Middle Ground; but no where near as good as dedicated SSD + HDD.
