Hard drive failure rates

[War_Wizard]

I just entered a discussion today on HDD fail rates.

During said conversation, fail rate charts came up, and the only information you can find is from "backblaze", which I find highly biased and mis-informative.

 

Here is why :

1) they are the only information for fail rates that you can currently find on the web (at least for me anyway...)

2) the numbers on the fail rates are padded HIGHLY, as follow :

a) some drives are tested in excess of 40,000 or more drives, while others are shown at around 1,000 drives.

b) testing is done with limited companies and drive sizes

 

 

Can anyone point me to a more accurate and less biased fail rate chart (i.e. one NOT from backblaze)??

[Biggerboot]

While I don't have data to back this up, the chance of failure usually has more to do with the type of drive it is, not who made it.  For example, drives with multiple platters have more points of failure.  But for a data center buying 10+tb ironwolves that's not a big deal.  Also if we're talking external enclosures/NAS it adds another point of failure, which you should research by the model imo.

 

I'll also add some points to your list:

• Their list of drives includes models of varying age and designs.
• They use desktop grade drives in an enterprise environment - while its less points of failure they're not rated for as heavy usage and have worse vibration tolerance --- it's flawed that they post the failure rates of their cuda drives.
• Says nothing about the ease of RMA for each company, although Sandisk owns WD who owns HGST these days so idk what you make of that.  I have no experience with Toshiba's RMA process but the other two companies do well enough.

I think that Backblaze can be useful is if they tested a particular drive one was considering for enterprise/enthusiast use.  Also there aren't many cloud providers willing to or are in the position to share their #s like that so you just don't see a lot of them.

 

tl;dr, the brand isn't that important.  All drives fail sooner than later.  Just get the right drive for your use-case (desktop, enterprise, NAS, etc) and have backups. 

[War_Wizard]

I'm aware of getting the right drive for the proper use. while not as good as some people here, and certainly not as good as linus (i cant program to same my life), I do know a few things about hardware.

 

I simply wanted a better fail chart.

[Biggerboot]

25 minutes ago, War_Wizard said:

I simply wanted a better fail chart.

One does not simply get a better fail chart.

 

*ahem*

 

I did come across this: https://www.hardware.fr/articles/944-6/disques-durs.html

 

Keep in mind this is for RMAs, so it's for hard drives failing within the warranty.  All under 1%.  I don't know hardware.fr's source. 

[War_Wizard]

Thanks for the effort. It's appreciated.

 

I know what I am asking is rather niche and limited.