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External hard drives
Large capacity (500GB+) Western Digital 2.5" external drives tend to have hard drives with the USB port built directly onto the PCB of the drive, not use an SATA to USB adapter like other drives. When these drives fail, it is extremely difficult to recover data as the USB controller seems to be prone to failure. Example picture of the PCB of a 2.5" 750GB external hard drive, showing a standard SATA drive for comparison (site in polish)
Iomega, LaCie, G-Tech, and other third party brands (brands who do not manufacture their hard drives) tend to use drives and/or enclosures made by the lowest bidder. These drives have varying levels of reliability and build quality, and (like all hard drives) may fail with or without warning.
