Where to get caddies for WD and HGST Travelstar drives (current drive is failing)?

[Enigma]

OK, I know someone will say that I should Google this, and I have. But I have had trouble locating exactly which caddies I need for each drive. Before I go on, I will say that I bought my G75VW around Aug. or so of last yr, and within 4 months the internal Seagate Momentus XT (what ASUS included by default) died on me. I noticed that it had alot of bad sectors (several thousands) just before the crash, and a few days later it just crapped out. So I promptly bought another drive of the exact same specs and installed it. That was around 2 months ago, maybe a bit less. And now the same thing has happened again!!! Just a few days ago I had to reinstall Windows 8, and when I went to install updates it froze at 33% (applying) after rebooting, and stayed stuck there for an hour. So I powered off and booted into Linux Mint. At first there were only around 400 bad sectors. After that it jumped to 1500, and then to 2500, and then 5000. Last time I checked it showed a whopping 50000 bad sectors and I'm like WTF?! This all happened in a matter of hours. So I downloaded SeaTools For DOS and it confirmed what I believed. Windows 8 will now install but installation will not complete, it gets stuck on a black screen just before you put in your username for the first time. This happened the last time as well so I know the bad sectors is what's causing it. At this point I'm just going to write it off as a loss and put the drive in external enclosure for storing static data that's not critical.

But I just cant believe this is happening again. Maybe it's just me, but in my experience the Momentus XT seems to be having a high failure rate, or maybe I'm just cursed. Either way I'm not sure I trust Seagate anymore after this experience. I had bought it the 2nd time around because of its' advertised solid state hybrid technology, which to my knowledge no WD drive has just yet, at least not for notebook drives. So now I'm looking for a replacement primary drive.

I've been eyeing the Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 (http://www.esaitech.com/hitachi-travelstar-7k1000-1tb-7200rpm-sata-6.0gbps-2.5-inch-internal-hard-dr...). It is billed as high performance, with 1 TB, 7200 RPM, 16 MB cache, and has a perfect form factor with a height 0f 9.5mm, which will fit fine into the G75. I do know that HGST/Hitachi was recently aquired by WD, and the drive has a 3 yr warranty. I'm sure WD will honor that. But what I'm not sure of is whether it has a higher than average failure rate, since it is a lesser known brand. On the other hand I could go with a more well known WD-branded drive, but the catch is that if I want 1 TB then I'm limited to 5400 RPM, and for me that's not ideal for a boot drive. Or I can get a 7200 RPM WD drive, but it would be limited to 750 GB. For me space is a huge issue, I use lots of gigs and routinely fill my drives (external and internal) quickly. In an ideal world I would go for a SSD, but they're too expensive for my budget, and the Seagate SSH has failed me one to many times for me to trust it again. I dont know of any other internal SSH drive like it.

So here I'd like to ask for the advice of someone more experienced. I do know that WD's Scorpio Black and Scorpio Blue series are highly rated. But I do hate being limited by being forced to choose 5400 RPM if I want 1TB in the same drive, and that's why the Hitachi above seems to be a good alternative. But if I do choose to go with WD as primary /w 750GB/7200RPM specs, then will the drive be as fast as the Momentus XT in terms of boot time, app performance, etc? The Momentus is a SSH whereas WD's drives arent, so I figure that might play in. Or would the difference be minimal/nonexistent? I'm thinking that maybe the Momentus's SSH abilities are overemphasized.

I already have a WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive that I bought a short while ago, but have never bothered to install it. It is 9.5mm and I am wondering where I need to get the drive caddy for it. Everywhere I look I see the drive but not the caddy, or they have to be bought as a bundle, or else I cant find the caddy at all. Also, where can I find a caddy for the Travelstar? I'm pretty sure it's what I'll be getting, I've done the research on it and it seems to be solid, if what I've read so far is any indication, despite it not being as well-known as the major brands. I figured caddies should be easy to find, but they're not, at least for me. Links from Newegg, Amazon, or eBay are preferred if possible, since that's where I buy most of my electronics.

Any help/advice is appreciated!

[Clintlgm]

Ouch on that price

[13fist]

Well now that I understand, all I can offer you is to suggest taking cosmicmango's advice and go for the ebay option. Should I come accross anything better, I'll pass it along to you here.
Aside from that, put the pliers away and I hope you don't own a hammer. lol