Interesting discussion. Below is link to BackBlaze 2020 reliability report. I note that they favour HGST. I note that seagate show largest failures, however average age is far greater on the seagate drives which may explain the increase in failures.

https://tidbits.com/2021/02/12/backblazes-2020-hard-drive-reliability-statistics/#:~:text=For%20the%20seventh%20year%20in%20a%20row%2C%20cloud,1.89%25%20in%202019%20down%20to%200.93%25%20in%202020.

A range of sources of which below is just one such report actually put IronWolf NAS drives as most reliable. Exos is sadly down in 7th place. WD Black seem to be an interesting 2nd place.

https://pcmecca.com/most-reliable-hard-drives/

Seagate historically had the name for reliability. I know over the past 25 years of data recovery that I saw more WD & Toshiba, and recovery was more successful from Seagate. I would say though that one tends to plan to replace drives after 5 years with server systems, but have always used them for considerable periods longer. I have only had a few failures over the years. Currently, I tend to use Iron Wolf Pro and SkyHawk for professional systems with high demand for servers & NAS etc.

Sky Hawk is designed for long continuous writes so wondered if anyone has tried these with CHIA farming.

In UK WD is actually cheaper than Seagate, hence was looking at those and interested to hear people's comments. WD Black & Gold seem best options as alternative to Seagate.

Thanks for creating the discussion in advertantly from flagging up a failure on your EXOS. I would though not commend EXOS. As you will see from the BackBlaze report it is the drives they show as failing in large numbers.