1TB external hard disks - reliable or not?

I have a Seagate 1TB external that I have been using for about 12 months.

I have repeatedly dropped, kicked and knocked the drive as I take it to and from work each day. I actually kicked it one day while it was at a friends place on the floor and the USB cable was outstretched (to make it reach his computer from the spare power point), doing so has made the USB socket on the drive become sort of loose. However the drive still hums along no problem.

But I stick to the golden rule of delicate media - Never put any data on there that you're not prepared to lose!

Nope, they are no more reliable or unreliable as any other hard drive.... only difference is if they go bad, you will lose a lot more!

Just remember, Raid is good for countering degradation / one hard drive going faulty and there is no excuse for a proper backup plan.

What you may have heard is Seagate recently had a whole generation of hard drives that had faulty firmware and decreased warranty from five years to three (on standard drives).