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And the winner of the most reliable disk drive award is ...
Backup outfit Backblaze releases longevity data for its 27,000 disks
The folks at backup-as-a-service outfit Backblaze have again done something astounding: they've not only looked at log files but analysed them, this time to figure out which vendor's disk drives offer the longest working life.
There's a scary-looking histogram in BackBlaze's post detailing the results that shows Seagate drives failing more often, but a glance at the table below suggests Backblaze has been running some of Seagate's kit for rather longer than it has used other drives.
| Model | Size | Number of Drives | Average Age in Years | Annual Failure Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seagate Desktop (ST4000DM000) HDD.15 | 4.0TB | 5199 | 0.3 | 3.80% |
| Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K2000 (HDS722020ALA330) | 2.0TB | 4716 | 2.9 | 1.10% |
| Hitachi GST Deskstar 5K3000 (HDS5C3030ALA630) | 3.0TB | 4592 | 1.7 | 0.90% |
| Seagate Barracuda (ST3000DM001) | 3.0TB | 4252 | 1.4 | 9.80% |
| Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 (HDS5C4040ALE630) | 4.0TB | 2587 | 0.8 | 1.50% |
| Seagate Barracuda LP (ST31500541AS) | 1.5TB | 1929 | 3.8 | 9.90% |
| Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (HDS723030ALA640) | 3.0TB | 1027 | 2.1 | 0.90% |
| Seagate Barracuda 7200(ST31500341AS) | 1.5TB | 539 | 3.8 | 25.40% |
| Western Digital Green (WD10EADS) | 1.0TB | 474 | 4.4 | 3.60% |
| Western Digital Red (WD30EFRX) | 3.0TB | 346 | 0.5 | 3.20% |
| Seagate Barracuda XT (ST33000651AS) | 3.0TB | 293 | 2 | 7.30% |
| Seagate Barracuda LP (ST32000542AS) | 2.0TB | 288 | 2 | 7.20% |
| Seagate Barracuda XT (ST4000DX000) | 4.0TB | 179 | 0.7 | n/a |
| Western Digital Green (WD10EACS) | 1.0TB | 84 | 5 | n/a |
| Seagate Barracuda Green (ST1500DL003) | 1.5TB | 51 | 0.8 | 120.00% |
The big winner from the study is Hitachi GST, whose drives consistently outlast others Backblaze uses and are also less likely to fall into a degraded state. Perhaps there's upside for the outfit's new owner Western Digital too: WD's own kit did worse in this study so some technology transfer could benefit the company's future drives.
The results make no claims for the performance of drives approved for use in enterprise arrays: Backblaze cheerfully RAIDs up consumer-grade and desktop drives to power its service. The analysis is therefore of limited use to those running enterprise storage appliances.
Those looking to populate a small array, or PC builders, may find the analysis represents useful guidance. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
