My point wasn't that I know which brand is better, but that any given individual, based solely on his or her own experience, is quite likely to reach conclusions that are driven by more or less random variables, while believing that those conclusions have a more general validity than they actually possess. (In other words, typical human decisions.)
--I'm somewhat, but not strongly, persuaded that a longer warranty period indicates a more reliable product. I think the equation has quite a few controlling variables, including the oddly sporadic usage pattern (write once, disconnect for weeks / months / years) of archiving. And in terms of business economics it could be a "self-fulfilling prophecy" to some extent, if a longer warranty period is widely perceived to indicate greater reliability when that is not actually the case--increasing the sales of that product line and allowing the manufacturer to carry some additional costs of defective returns while still keeping it profitable.
There may be several concerns that need considering. Say there's an average time by which a given model of drive accumulates a 1% likelihood of failure; that time will differ for different drive types. But the failures might or might not "avalanche" after that point, such that the drive with the longest life up to its 1% point may also be the drive that reaches a 5% failure likelihood the soonest. It's purely a business decision as to what warranty a manufacturer would offer in such a case if it occurred.
Surely there are cases that go in that direction, even if not to the extent of my evil little thought experiment. I'm sure that the major manufacturers have graduate engineers on staff who spend all their time analyzing and quantifying drive failures, and I'm equally sure that we don't know what those people know. Thus I never trust any one drive (or other physical medium) longer than the minimum time necessary to duplicate its contents onto a backup.
--best regards