The best external hard drive I've used so far is a Maxell one. It's not a famous brand, but it served me well, without breaking, for 3 years, in some the worst conditions possible (being dropped, left in the dirt etc.).
I've had a Western Digital external hard drive a few years ago. It stopped working after it fell off my desk. Luckily, I only had some stuff I had downloaded from the internet on it, so it was definitely not worth taking it to a data recovery center.