I have 4 Seagates in this machine. All but 1 are 3+ yrs old, the 4th one is a Firecuda about 2 months old. Only drives I ever really had nightmares with were the IBM Deathstars...the 75GXPs. All 8 I bought failed incredibly quickly. The good old days..heh...
Over the 30 or so years I have been using computers (yes, the path through piracy was explored as well), I have never had any virus or malware infection. It's just common sense really, don't be dumb. There is protection available, use it.
8 Tracks were worse but cassettes were pretty bad. I do still love vinyl. Most of what I listen to is FLAC, preferably from vinyl if available. Some things are simply impossible to find in anything other than mp3 though, I do still have Metallica's Stone Balloon show in Delaware from way back...
Again I wait to build. I may be stuck with this machine forever at this point :|
Bill the Cat made me smile, kind of makes up for it...sort of I suppose.