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Hard Drive Reliability statistics from online backup company Backblaze

#1

GasBandit

GasBandit

http://techreport.com/news/25940/hard-drive-reliability-study-names-names#0

Interesting reading there. I used to be a die-hard seagate guy, but I too noticed once their drives started getting bigger than 1 TB, reliability sank like a stone.

Guess I'll be looking at more hitachis in the future.





#2

strawman

strawman

Fantastic insight! This is the kind of aggregate statistics the hard drive companies loathed would get out.

On the other hand, one might wonder if back blaze themselves are using hitachi drives at a discount...


#3

Terrik

Terrik

I want to see more on Samsung and Toshiba, which I both currently use.


#4

bhamv3

bhamv3

Wait... so this thing is saying that within three years, my Seagate has a one-in-four chance of dying?

That's... disquieting.


#5

GasBandit

GasBandit

bhamv3 said:
Wait... so this thing is saying that within three years, my Seagate has a one-in-four chance of dying?

That's... disquieting.
Click to expand...
If it's any consolation, I have noticed that compared to other brands, Seagates tend to die slower once failure starts.. IE, they give you plenty of warning via performance hits/reboots/general irritation to get your files off the drive before they fail completely.


#6

Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

This is really interesting. I wonder why failure rates seem to go down so much for bigger hard drives?


#7

strawman

strawman

Chad Sexington said:
This is really interesting. I wonder why failure rates seem to go down so much for bigger hard drives?
Click to expand...
I wonder if the reality is that people with 4TB hard drives still only use a TB or two, and by not using all of the hard drive they are simply not running into problems as much as a 1TB HD user that's using the whole thing.


#8

GasBandit

GasBandit

I think it stems back to the taiwan floods which happened when 1-1.5 TB hard drives were the big sellers. Remember, there was flooding that killed the hard drive market for like a year, and companies (particularly seagate) had to scramble for alternative, perhaps slightly grayer, sources for their stuff. That was precisely when I started noticing dramatic increases in the number of seagates that were failing on me, compared to western digitals. However, since then, the manufacturing/supply has recovered for the most part and I think we're seeing a return to normalcy.


#9

PatrThom

PatrThom

These data have been available annually for a while now, but even they admit that since they only started keeping track so recently, they don't really have a lot of SSD data available.

...soooo you might want to check out this article (and the previous four), too.

--Patrick


#10

strawman

strawman

My 64GB SSD was the reason for the demise of my computer I complained about dying a few months ago. It didn't just stop working, it prevented the computer from starting up. Bad, bad design.


#11

bhamv3

bhamv3

GasBandit said:
I think it stems back to the taiwan floods which happened when 1-1.5 TB hard drives were the big sellers. Remember, there was flooding that killed the hard drive market for like a year, and companies (particularly seagate) had to scramble for alternative, perhaps slightly grayer, sources for their stuff. That was precisely when I started noticing dramatic increases in the number of seagates that were failing on me, compared to western digitals. However, since then, the manufacturing/supply has recovered for the most part and I think we're seeing a return to normalcy.
Click to expand...
As a Taiwanese person, I apologize on behalf of our climate.


#12

PatrThom

PatrThom

Some other sites are starting to weigh in on this report.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

--Patrick


#13

strawman

strawman

I must not have read the original report thoroughly, because I was thinking that this data was from customer failures, not backblazes server drive failures.

That's too bad, because it really does decrease the value of the report.


#14

Bubble181

Bubble181

Some of his counterpoints aren't correct/fair, though.
I agree with most of his points, heck, I could've pointed them out from the beginning, but some are either irrelevant-if-true, or simply not true because of how he regards the data.


#15

PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
...soooo you might want to check out this [SSD] article (andthepreviousfour), too.
Click to expand...
Next installment is up. Half the drives failed at the petabyte mark. Which brands/architectures? Click here to read on.

--Patrick


#16

Espy

Espy

Well, it certainly lines up with my experience.


#17

Dave

Dave

As someone who will be building a new computer soon, this information is awesome! I am currently looking at a 1 TB WD as I already have one that works and I'll have 2 TB total.

Good stuff, Gas!


#18

PatrThom

PatrThom

SSD experiment is up to 1.5 petabytes.

--Patrick


#19

PatrThom

PatrThom

So, you've heard of SMART status? Ever wonder which SMART attributes really matter?
Backblaze is now sorting data and cross-referencing drive failures against SMART attribute totals.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog-smart-stats-2014-8.html

--Patrick


#20

PatrThom

PatrThom

SSD Experiment is up to 2.0 petabytes.
Only two drives remain. Who will come out on top?

--Patrick


#21

Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
SSD Experiment is up to 2.0 petabytes.
Only two drives remain. Who will come out on top?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Any way you cut it, it's EXCELLENT news for consumers, in that anything you get, as long as big enough for what you need, will do just fine. "Wear" is basically off the table entirely.


#22

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I might have missed it in a previous posting on the test, but have they said what they consider to be typical usage, to put the test results in context?


#23

Eriol

Eriol

SpecialKO said:
I might have missed it in a previous posting on the test, but have they said what they consider to be typical usage, to put the test results in context?
Click to expand...
They have. In that article:
The last victim fell at 1.2PB, which is barely a speck in the rear-view mirror for our remaining subjects. The 840 Pro and a second HyperX 3K have now reached two freaking petabytes of writes. To put that figure into perspective, the SSDs in my main desktop have logged less than two terabytes of writes over the past couple years. At this rate, it'll take me a thousand years to reach that total.
Click to expand...
So you have no worries.


#24

PatrThom

PatrThom

Obviously if your usage model writes more data than that (video editing, for instance) then your data usage will be higher, but to put it in perspective, keep in mind that 1TB is about equivalent to 200 DVDs.

--Patrick


#25

PatrThom

PatrThom

New report from Backblaze released for cumulative 2014 data.

tl;dr: Don't get a 3TB Seagate 7200.14 model.

--Patrick


#26

PatrThom

PatrThom

So, you wished you could sift through all of Backblaze's trove of SMART data yourself to see if you could spot any undiscovered trends, or satisfy your morbid data curiosity?

Wish granted.

--Patrick


#27

GasBandit

GasBandit

Of all the wishes I have wished, sorting through years of unfiltered data is not one of them.


#28

PatrThom

PatrThom

I know.

This is one of those ironic wishes, where you get exactly what you ask for, but not necessarily what you want...which is exactly what you should expect when you ask anything of a computer.

--Patrick


#29

Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
SSD Experiment is up to 2.0 petabytes.
Only two drives remain. Who will come out on top?
Click to expand...
And the winner is: Samsung 840 Pro.

Final article: The SSD Endurance Experiment: They're all dead - This is the end, beautiful friend

None hit 2.5PB, but it's still an amazing result. Basically, unless you're doing insane things every single day, never worry about your SSD failing.


#30

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Basically, unless you're doing insane things every single day, never worry about your SSD failing.
Click to expand...
...unless you leave them powered off for too long, it seems.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ssds-lose-data-if-left-without-power-just-7-days-1500402
The headline should probably read "as little as 7 days" but whatever. Data lost are data lost.

--Patrick


#31

PatrThom

PatrThom

More Backblaze statistics.
Spoiler alert: HGST still on top. Seagate 4TB not so good.

--Patrick


#32

PatrThom

PatrThom

Q1 Update, get it while it's fresh.

--Patrick


#33

GasBandit

GasBandit

The 2017 update is out.

https://techreport.com/news/33201/backblaze-fires-off-its-2017-hard-drive-reliability-report


#34

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
The 2017 update is out.

https://techreport.com/news/33201/backblaze-fires-off-its-2017-hard-drive-reliability-report
Click to expand...
Oh good, they said it was coming soon. I've been waiting.

--Patrick


#35

PatrThom

PatrThom

Speaking of data loss, BB's Hard Drive Stats for Q1 2018 are finally out.

Big winners are still some of the Hitachi 4TB drives (Models HMS5C4040ALE640 & HMS5C4040BLE640), which have the lowest fail rate of any of the drives they report.

EDIT: Apparently there are others watching this data as well. The drives I mention above used to be available refurbished for $99, but now a quick check shows them going for $200-350ea. Maybe now we're seeing some sort of effect from BurstCoin miners?

--Patrick


#36

PatrThom

PatrThom

It's that time again.

With no more Seagate 3TB drives left to skew the results, it looks like the newest "worst" drive is a HGST 4TB, though the sample size was extremely low (< 80 drives), so that number doesn't have a very high confidence, especially since a related HGST 4TB model has a failure rate only 1/20th of that.

--Patrick


#37

PatrThom

PatrThom

Not news from Backblaze, but still feel it belongs here:

Quantity of hard drives shipped expected to drop by ~50% in 2019.

I don't know if this means prices will go up...or down. All I know is HDD prices (for 3.5" drives) seem to bottom out at $50, like no matter how small/big/fast/slow/whatever it might be, it won't be less than $50. Even if it's just a 320GB SATA drive from 2004, it's still $50.

--Patrick


#38

PatrThom

PatrThom

And of course as soon as I post the above, turns out BB has released new figures for Q1 2019, available here.

tl;dr: Seagate is improving, but they're still the worst.

--Patrick


#39

PatrThom

PatrThom

I found this amusing and informative.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/life-and-times-of-a-backblaze-hard-drive/

--Patrick


#40

Dave

Dave

Every time I format a Seagate drive from now on I'm going to gloat in its face. "You like that, bitch?" I'm going to snarl. "You crash on me and I'm going to do the same to your friends!"

Of course, being a Seagate, it's got extra chromosomes and will probably still crash, but at least I'll get a moment's fun out of the deal.


#41

PatrThom

PatrThom

It’s that time again, again.

Everyone is improving, but HGST is still on top.

—Patrick


#42

Bones

Bones

PatrThom said:
It’s that time again, again.

Everyone is improving, but HGST is still on top.

—Patrick
Click to expand...
am I understanding this correctly? HGST and WD are now the same company?


#43

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yes. WD bought Hitachi's disk business effective 2012, but they essentially operated separately until 2015 when China finally gave the okay to finish merging. WD also bought SanDisk in 2016.

--Patrick


#44

klew

klew

Time to buy a new storage drive, and finding that many of the top selling internal drives on newegg have 15-20% one star reviews. Do unhappy customers tend to post about their bad experiences more than satisfied customers who just go along with the day and never leave a review?


#45

PatrThom

PatrThom

klew said:
Do unhappy customers tend to post about their bad experiences more than satisfied customers who just go along with the day and never leave a review?
Click to expand...
That's not just hard drives, that's pretty much everything.

--Patrick


#46

GasBandit

GasBandit

klew said:
Time to buy a new storage drive, and finding that many of the top selling internal drives on newegg have 15-20% one star reviews. Do unhappy customers tend to post about their bad experiences more than satisfied customers who just go along with the day and never leave a review?
Click to expand...
For platter drives, I'm still in the WD camp right now.

For SSDs, Samsung.


#47

PatrThom

PatrThom

Backblaze has their newest list out, and they've started adding SSD reliability stats to the mix.

tl:dr; SSDs are, on average, ~10x more reliable than HDDs, AFR-wise. There still isn't as much aggregate history with SSDs as with HDDs, but the trend is pretty clear.

--Patrick


#48

PatrThom

PatrThom

Backblaze closes out 2021 with their newest update.

tl;dr: HGST still rules.

--Patrick


#49

GasBandit

GasBandit

Looks like WDC might be getting its act together again, though. Bout time.

That one seagate 14tb looks SO awful though.


#50

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
That one seagate 14tb looks SO awful though.
Click to expand...
From the article:
The Patient Is Stable: Last quarter, we reported on the state of our 14TB Seagate drives (model: ST14000NM0138) provisioned in Dell storage servers. They were failing at a higher than expected rate and everyone—Backblaze, Seagate, and Dell—wanted to know why.
Click to expand...
It looks like a firmware upgrade was released that cut the failure rate almost in half, but the investigation is ongoing.

--Patrick


#51

PatrThom

PatrThom

You might be hoping for a remaster of your favorite 90's album.
You might be waiting a looooong time for about 20% of them. Like...forever.
arstechnica.com

Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying

The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
--Patrick


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