I've never had ANY drive fail in twenty years. And that includes Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital. I currently have 11 hard drives running faultlessly (touching wood!).
There are always going to be some instances where a defect comes to light, but it needs to be considered in context to the number of hard drives in use. And you never hear from the satisfied customers to the same extent.
I am sure a manufacturer would not sell a defective product in this day and age and not stand by it. Hitachi (or IBM as they originally were) did have a poor drive and it must have cost them millions and has scared their reputation, but that was many years ago and a different company.
You should never rely on just one drive and always build some sort of redundancy. Having two of these drives would be a sensible strategy. At the price, it's much cheaper than trying to recover your life's photos from a dead drive!
Graham