If you want speed, go raid 0. Don't let the raid 0 doomsdayer's scare you. If you have a good backup schedule, there isn't much to worry about. The CPU cost is minimal. Its pretty simple to rebuild the array.
All drive brands have some trouble from time to time. Anecdotal evidence is not enough to say one brand is better than the other. Having used Seagate, WD, samsung, and many others, all have had some issues. It's difficult to say any are better or worse. Some have nice features, some are quieter, some more energy efficient, bigger cache, faster spin, and so on. Just make a choice and set up your system. More than likely, it will work out fine.