Priced at under US$400 at its introduction, the 1541 became widely popular. Although expensive by today's standards, a C64 plus a 1541 cost about $900, while an Apple II with no disk drive cost $1395. The demand caught Commodore by surprise, who struggled to produce the drive in adequate quantities. Failure rates on the 1541 initially were very high, and the drives were virtually impossible to find. The lead editorial in the December 1983 issue of Compute!'s Gazette lamented that of seven drives the magazine had in its editorial offices, four had failed. Eventually the problems subsided ...

See also:

Commodore 1541, Commodore 1541 - Introduction and early problems, Commodore 1541 - Versions and third-party clones, Commodore 1541 - The serial computer interface, Commodore 1541 - Copy protection by read error, Commodore 1541 - The drive head misalignment issue, Commodore 1541 - Commodore's successor products

Read more here: » Commodore 1541: Encyclopedia II - Commodore 1541 - Introduction and early problems