Pure anecdote here but: I own three different external HDD hard drives, all bought at different times (one of them bought used and formatted, so I don't even know how old it really is) that have all been mine since more than 10 years ago. I still use them all and they all still work fine. Obviously I also have everything on them backed up to a cloud regularly, but so far, they've been perfectly reasonable in their speed, quiet and not too warm (the opposites of these three being red flags for near failure in my experience)
I also own a secondary work/careless travel laptop that's from 2005 and that I've owned since buying it used in 2012. It too works fine, though I did have to change its hard drive once.
I also own a secondary work/careless travel laptop that's from 2005 and that I've owned since buying it used in 2012. It too works fine, though I did have to change its hard drive once.