Huge list of failure rates on PC components (French, but I translated nearly everything)

[hawaiims]

The huge translation (Please remember to read the introduction below):

 

because of my mishap, there will actually be 2 translated articles in this post, one from May 2013, and one from October 2013. Having 2 articles from a different time should give you an idea of how manufacturers have improved over 3 years (because articles mention the previous year). I apologize in advance for the confusion that this may cause, but I will denote each section as "Article posted in May 2013" and "Article posted in October 2013" 

 

Please use the search function in your browser (Control+F) to find particular brands or models. 

And feel free to share this stuff with your friends!

 

Introduction:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

If there is an unknown when being recommended and buying a product, it's the reliability of the product. The reputation of the manufacturer is there to reassure us, but from one model to another, the reliability can vary tremendously, and even well known manufacturers are not saved from having slip-ups.

 

All statistics come from an unnamed large French online store, which provided the statistics to hardware.fr

 

How is a product declared defective? There are two possibilities. Either a technician will consider through an exchange such as a phone call with a customer shows that the product does not work, or if there is a doubt, the product in question will be tested to validate the failure of said product.

 

We have to add that these statistics are limited to products sold by this e-vendor, and returns done specifically to said vendor, which is not always the case because people will sometimes return the product to the manufacturer, however this is a minority of the cases.

 

The reported failure rates concern products sold between April 1st, 2012 and October 1st 2012, for returns created before April 2013, 

 

Each time, we compared the failure rates to those of our preceding article. 

 

The evolution of the failure rates generally forms a flattened U shape, with very high failure rates in the beginning. 

 

All statistics by brand are based on a minimum sample of 500 sold products and statistics by model have a minimum sample rate of 100, with the largest samples being tens of thousands of sales per brand and thousands for specific products. 

 

Although as we like to say in financial domains, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, we publish today the statistics in our disposition. This type of statistic needs to be viewed with a certain distance, especially because part of these products have now become obsolete. However that doesn't discredit the fact that these statistics are informative and allow us to point the finger at products or manufacturers from which we hope to see improvements in the future.

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

(Only stuff changed from the May article was posted)

 

The reported failure rates concern products sold between October 1st 2012, and April 1st, 2013 for returns created before October 2013, 

 

 

*Please note that obviously not all brands of particular components are noted either because of retailer availability, regional availability or sample sizes that are too small for this large French e-vendor*

 

Motherboards:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Gigabyte 1,19% (vs 1,77% before)

- ASUS 1,79% (vs 2,34% before)

- ASRock 2,09% (vs 1,67% before)

- MSI 3,05% (vs 2,24% before)

 

Compared to the previous period, Gigabyte and Asus do better, Asrock and MSI less. Gigabyte is in an obvious lead, while MSI's number surpasses 3%, which is worrying to say the least. If we look more specifically at LGA 1155 Z77 Express motherboards, here is the ranking we get:

- Gigabyte 1,70%

- ASUS 1,87%
- ASRock 1,91%
- MSI 3,57%

 

A high percentage of the high return rate for MSI motherboards is then related to their Z77 models. Of all models here are the 5 most returned ones:

 

- 5,88% ASUS Rampage IV Extreme

- 5,59% ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP
- 4,94% MSI Z77A-G45
- 4,10% ASRock 960GM/U3S3
- 4,09% ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3

 

Here then, is the reason for the high overall failure rate of MSI boards, the Z77A-G45, one of their models. Without this one, MSI's average plummets to 2.03% on all Z77 boards and 2.19% for the average of all their boards.

Thankfully this seems resolved because the next period (sales between October 2012 and April 2013), the failure rate of the Z77A-G45 drops down to 1.45%. (Read next article posted right below for more info)

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Gigabyte 1,43% (vs 1,19% year before)

- MSI 1,83% (vs 3,05% year before)

- ASUS 1,86% (vs 1,79% year before)

- ASRock 2,09% (vs 2,09% year before)

 

MSI considerably improved it's rate compared to the previous year, which had a rate of 2.03%. if you were to exclude one of their main model (the Z77A-G45) which had a failure rate of 4.94%. The manufacturer returns from fourth place to 2nd place, and Gigabyte still leads the pack despite a higher failure rate this year. 

 

If we look more explicitly at the failure rates for LGA 1155 Z77 express motherboards, here is the result:

 

- MSI 1,88%
- ASUS 2,01%
- Gigabyte 2,44%
- ASRock 3,51%

 

Asrock obtains the worst score with 3.51%. It's failure rate however,is caused mostly by their Z77 boards because without them, Asrock would get a 2% failure rat.

 

All models combined, here are the 4 models with higher than 5% return rates :

- 7,05% ASRock 970 Extreme3
- 6,19% MSI X79A-GD45
- 6,08% ASRock 990FX Extreme3
- 6,06% ASRock 970 Pro3

 

We find 3 AM3+ Asrock motherboards who sandwich an LGA 2011 motherboard from MSI.

 

Power Supplies:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Cooler Master 0,98% (vs 1,01% year before)
- Fortron / FSP Group 0,99% (vs 0,42% year before)

- be quiet! 1,15% (N/A)
- Antec 1,23% (vs 1,17%  year before)

- Thermaltake 1,98% (vs 2,36%  year before)

- Corsair 2,18% (vs 2,30%  year before)

- Seasonic 2,36% (vs 2,20%  year before)

 

The duo with the best rankings stays the same, but their placement is inversed, with a notable increase in FSP failure rates. We also notice the entry of be quiet! in 3rd place. Seasonic obtains last place despite a reasonable failure rate. 

 

Here are the 5 models with the highest return rates during the time period:

- 3,64% Corsair Gaming Series GS600

- 3,59% Corsair CX500 V2
- 3,59% Corsair CX600 V2 
- 3,39% FSP (Fortron) HEXA 500
- 3,31% Seasonic S12II-520

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Fortron / FSP Group 0,49% (vs 0,99% before)

- BeQuiet 0,61% (vs 1,15% before)

- Antec 1,33% (vs 1,23% before)

- Cooler Master 1,52% (vs 0,98% before)

- Seasonic 1,6% (vs 2,36% before)

- Thermaltake 1,87% (vs 1,98% before)

- Akasa 1,92% (N/A)
- Corsair 1,96% (vs 2,18% before)

- Cougar 2,41% (N/A)

 

FSP group takes back the first place it lost during the last article, while Cooler Master goes down in the ranking. Be Quiet improves by one spot, and Cougar enters in last position. Nevertheless none of the rates were catastrophic.

 

Not a single PSU had more than a 5% return rate during this period, so we will then show the 5 PSUs with the highest return rates:

 

- 4,86% Cougar ST-350
- 4,76% Corsair CX600 V2
- 4,46% Thermaltake SP-550MPCBEU
- 4,19% Corsair CX500 V2
- 4,13% Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850

 

Memory/RAM:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Kingston 0,20% (vs 0,27% year before)
- Crucial 0,39% (vs 0,30% year before)

- G.Skill 0,95% (vs 1,01% year before)

- Corsair 1,18% (vs 1,06% year before)

 

The rankings stay the same from the previous year. Kingston and G-skill reduce their failure rates, while it increases for Crucial and Corsair.

 

Here are the 5 products with the most returns:

- 4,92% : Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9
- 4,46% : Corsair Vengeance LP Black 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9
- 4,35% : Corsair Vengeance LP Blue 16 GB (4x4) DDR3 1600 CL9
- 3,46% : Corsair XM3 8 GB (2x4) DDR3 1333 CL9
- 3,31% : Corsair XM3 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 1600 CL11

 

Corsair apparently had some problems with it's DDR3 kits during this time period, notably vengeance kits.

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Kingston 0,20% (vs 0,20% before)
- Crucial 0,46% (vs 0,39% before)

- G.Skill 0,90% (vs 0,95% before)

- Corsair 1,08% (vs 1,18% before)

 

For the third consecutive period, the ranking stays the same. Kingston keeps it's very low return rate, while we see a small increase in crucial and a small improvement in G. Skill and Corsair failure rates. 

 

Here again, we don't take see any memory kits with over 5% return rates, nevertheless here are the 5 kits with the highest return rates:

 

- 4,41% Corsair XMS 4 GB (2x2) DDR3 1333 CL9

- 4,14% Corsair XMS3 8 GB (2x4) DDR3 1333 CL9
- 3,63% Corsair Value Select 8 GB DDR3 1333 CL9
- 2,73% Corsair Mac Memory SO-DIMM 8 GB (2x4) DDR3 1066 CL7
- 2,67% Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 1600 CL10

 

Just like the last article we only see corsair models in this ranking, however this time around the models with the highest failure rates are not necessarily the highest end ones (vengeance series). 

 

Graphics cards:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Gainward 1,27% (vs 2,05% before)

- PNY 1,32% (vs 1,56% before)

- Gigabyte 1,54% (vs 1,82% before)

- ASUS 1,69% (vs 1,53%before)

- MSI 1,81% (vs 1,69% before)

- Sapphire 3,51% (vs 1,32% before)

 

The expression the "first will be the last" holds true in this case compared to the previous year. Gainward gets the lead, with Sapphire in an obvious last  position due mostly in part to their 7870 models, which when removed from the equation reduces Sapphire's failure rate to 2.06%.

 

Here are the models that had return rates higher than 5%:

 

-15,76% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC Edition 2 GB
- 14,29% Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Edition 3 GB
- 11,88% Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1 GB
- 11,82% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2 GB
- 7,07% ASUS ENGT520 SL/DI/1GD3/V2(LP)
- 6,98% ASUS GTX680-DC2O-2GD5 2 GB
- 5,80% Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3 GB
- 5,32% Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti OC 1024 MB

 

Other than the 7870, we see that two other Sapphire models surpassed the 10% mark, of which one 7970 (the 11197-01) and one 6770 (the 11189-10). 

 

If we look at the numbers by specific GPU, we obtain :

- Radeon HD 7850 : 2,69%
- Radeon HD 7870 : 12,45%
- Radeon HD 7950 : 5,32%
- Radeon HD 7970 : 7,24%
- GeForce GTX 560 Ti : 1,43%
- GeForce GTX 660 Ti : 3,06%
- GeForce GTX 670 : 3,42%
- GeForce GTX 680 : 2,66%

 

Certain numbers are very strongly impacted by certain models, which is the case with the 7870s by Sapphire for example. With the 7970, if we exclude the problematic Sapphire model, we get 5.47%

 

the rate of failure for 7870 lowers considerably, although it's still abnormally high, with sapphire cards still having the problems. In general, we see that GeForce models are more reliable according to this data, notably with an excellent ROF for the GTX 660. 

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- PNY 0,94% (vs 1,32% before)
- MSI 1,38% (vs 1,81% before)

- Gainward 1,61% (vs 1,27% before)

- Zotac 1,70% (N/A)
- ASUS 1,81% (vs 1,69% before)

- Gigabyte 1,84% (vs 1,54% before)

- Sapphire 3,15% (vs 3,51% before)

 

PNY jumps from second to first place, while Sapphire keeps it's last position. We have to however clarify that PNY sales are not often for higher end cards, which are more subject to failure. And as proof that the average ROF doesn't necesarilly give the best idea, the GTX 660 which was the card from PNY with the most returns had a rate of 2.86%

 

MSI also makes a noteworthy improvement to 2nd place, here are the models that obtained failure rates higher than 5%, there are unfortunately many:

 

- 12,67% Sapphire Radeon HD 7850

- 7,44% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC V2
- 7,41% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC V1
- 7,02% Sapphire HD 7950 With Boost (11196-16)
- 6,09% ASUS HD7750-DCSL-1GD5
- 5,82% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 V1
- 5,65% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 V2
- 5,30% Gainward GeForce GTX 670

 

In first place, we don't find the 7870 like we could have imagined from the previous article but the 7850! The Sapphire card apparently suffered from the same problems as the 7870 that we already largely covered. the OC version of the card (7850) is somehow spared and attained 2,39%

 

The 7870 are still in the high failure ranking however, whether they are the V1 or the V2 that supposedly fixed the issues with the V1. The intruders in this list from Sapphire cards are a fanless Radeon 7750 from Asus and a Gainward 670.

 

If we take a careful look at the numbers by GPU, we obtain: 

- Radeon HD 7850 : 3,74%
- Radeon HD 7870 : 5,48%
- Radeon HD 7870 XT : 4,25%
- Radeon HD 7950 : 5,75%
- Radeon HD 7970 : 5,31%

- GeForce GTX 660 : 1,01%
- GeForce GTX 660 Ti : 2,81%
- GeForce GTX 670 : 2,87%
- GeForce GTX 680 : 1,99%

 

It is quite easy to conclude that AMD based cards are generally less dependable than their GeForce counterparts. Without completely discreting these numbers however, we have to make note of the fact that Sapphire heavily influences on the 7850 and 7870. Without Sapphire, these cards would have a ROF of 1.5% and 1.64%. The opposite holds true for the 7950 and 7970 cards for which we get a higher ROF when we exclude Sapphire cards, however the sample sizes are rather small.

 

Hard Drives:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Toshiba 1,15%

- Seagate 1,44% (vs 1,65%)
- Western 1,55% (vs 1,44%)
- Samsung 2,24% (vs 1,30%)
- Hitachi 2,40% (vs 3,45%)
 

We mixed all formats of hard drives, which means that we were able to add Toshiba to the list despite a rather small amount of 3.5" drives they sold. This Former arrives in 1st position. Of note is the high failure rate jump for Samsung, compared to the lowering in failure for Hitachi.

 

Here are the 5 discs with the highest failure rates:

 

- 5,04% WD Caviar Black 1,5 TB (WD1502FAEX)
- 4,94% Hitachi 7K1000.C 1 TB (HDS721010CLA332)
- 4,87% Hitachi 7K3000 2 ToB(HDS723020BLA642)
- 3,57% Seagate Barracuda 320 GB (ST320DM001)
- 3,51% WD Caviar Red 2 TB (WD20EFRX)

If we look specifically at  2 TB drives here are the obtained numbers :

- 4,87% Hitachi 7K3000 (HDS723020BLA642)
- 3,51% WD Caviar Red (WD20EFRX)
- 3,01% Samsung SpinPoint F4 (HD201UI)
- 2,12% WD Caviar RE4 (WD2003FYYS)
- 1,97% WD Caviar Black (WD2002FAEX)
- 1,95% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST2000DM001)
- 1,30% WD Caviar Green (WD20EARX)
- 1,01% WD AV-GP (WD20EURS)

And the 3 TB drives :

- 2,85% WD Caviar Green (WD30EZRX)
- 2,71% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST3000DM001)
- 1,89% WD Caviar Red (WD30EFRX)

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Seagate 0,95% (vs 1,44% year before)

- Hitachi 1,16% (vs 2,40% year before)
- Western 1,19% (vs 1,55% year before)
- Toshiba 1,54% (vs 1,15% year before)

 

Hitachi HGST which was for a long time the definite last place, continues to improves its failure rate ever since it's buyout by Western Digital, but that's in large part due to the the sales of it's high capacity hard drives which significantly lowered (>2TB hard drives). Toshiba sees it's rate decrease, while Seagate improves it's rate which allows it first place. 
Warning: Unlike others, Toshiba doesn't allow a direct return to the manufacturers  (so it's failure rate might actually be considerably lower if it were to allow them)

 

Only one disk obtains a failure rate higher than 4% during this time period, it's the Seagate constellation ES 2 with a rate of 9.64%. The failure rate is high, however the sample relatively small.

 

Here are the rates for 2TB hard drives:

- 9,64% Seagate Constellation ES ST2000NM0011
- 3,38% Western Digital Caviar RE4 WD2003FYYS 
- 2,36% Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003
- 1,45% Western Digital Caviar Black 2 WD2002FAEX
- 1,45% Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 
- 1,38% Seagate SV35 ST2000VX000
- 1,35% Western Digital Green WD20EZRX 
- 1,12% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST2000DM001
- 1,09% Western Digital AV-GP WD20EURS 
- 0,96% Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 
- 0,83% Western Digital RE WD2000FYYZ

 

And for 3TB hard drives: 
- 1,99% Western Digital Red WD30EFRX 

- 1,48% Western Digital Green WD30EZRX 
- 1,29% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001

 

(I have no idea why the 1TB hard drive statistics were not in the article) 

 

SSD:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Samsung 0,05% (vs 0,48% before)

- Plextor 0,16% (N/A)
- Intel 0,37% (vs 0,45% before)

- Crucial 1,12% (vs 1,11% before)

- Corsair 1,61% (vs 1,05% before)

- OCZ 6,64% (vs 5,02% before) / 2,92% without Petrol and Octane SATA 2 (vs 3,05% before when Octane and Petrol were not included)

 

We didn't make any numerical errors with Samsung, which is very impressive. It eclipses the entry of Plextor within the ranking, who also gets a very good score. Be careful however, with it's M3 and M3 Pro because they had a free warranty that allowed returns directly in house, which of course lowered the retailer rates for Plextor. The rate for corsair increased, just like OCZ, which once again ends up dead last.

 

This rate is in effect strongly affected by two series, the SATA 3 Petrol and the SATA 2 Octane, which are respectively at a 39.79% and 36.13% return rates, a disgrace. Without these two series of OCZ SSDs, their overall rate decreases to 2.92% which still puts them last, but at a much more reasonable return rate (which however still stays inflated by certain series, such as the 7.51% return rate on the Agility 4) while certain other ones fare better (1,89% for the Vertex 3 and 1,46% for the vertex 4).

 

If we look at models with a higher than 5% return rate, OCZ monopolizes the ranking:

 

- 52,07% OCZ Octane SATA 2 128 GB

- 45,26% OCZ Petrol 128 GB
- 44,76% OCZ Octane SATA 2 64 GB
- 40,57% OCZ Petrol 64 GB
- 10,23% OCZ Agility 4 256 GB
- 8,70% OCZ Octane SATA 3 256 GB
- 7,41% OCZ Agility 4 64 GB
- 6,85% OCZ Agility 4 128 GB
- 6,59% OCZ Agility 3 90 GB
- 5,56% OCZ Octane SATA 3 128 GB

 

Thankfully OCZ seems to finally be on the right track after their improvement in the next period. 

 

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Average Failure rates:

 

- Samsung 0,28% (vs 0,05% year before)

- Intel 0,63% (vs 0,37% year before)

- Kingston 1,00% (N/A)
- Corsair 1,88% (vs 1,61% year before)

- Crucial 2,26% (vs 1,12% year before)

- OCZ 2,27% (vs 6,64% year before)

 

Samsung keeps the first place spot despite the fact that the previous exceptional return rate is not maintained. We find Intel in second, faithful to it's own parts for it's SSD, while Kingston makes an entry in 3rd place. The failure rate of Crucial doubles, and with barely any difference from the former, OCZ comes in at last place. For OCZ it's failure rate lowers strongly with the Octane SATA 2 which was discontinued, without which OCZ's failure rate would have been 2.92% the previous period (compared to 6.64%.)

 

5 models obtained failure rates higher than 4%:

- 11,19% OCZ Vector 128 GB
- 9,30% OCZ Vector 256 GB
- 5,11% Crucial V4 64 GB
- 4,92% Crucial M4 512 GB
- 4,41% Kingston HyperX 3K 120 GB

 

When OCZ launched it's vector SSDs, OCZ prided itself by guaranteeing a certain level of reliability, however it shows to be a failure according to these numbers. Even though the sample is not that large, while superior to the 100 samples stated in the introduction, the presence of two capacities of vector SSDs in the rankings validates a problem with the vector. The firmware released in the end of march seems to have fixed a large part of the problems, but the rates stay superior to what we expect of a high end SSD because they are already 3.64 and 3.45%. 

 

Conclusion:

Article posted on May 10th 2013:

 

Compared to the previous period, return rates evolved as such:

 

- Motherboards 1,99% (vs 2,01% before)

- Power supplies 1,45% (vs 1,58% before)

- Memory/RAM 0,81% (vs 0,78% before)

- Graphics cards 2,13% (vs 1,77% before)
- Hard drives 1,53% (vs 1,63% before)

- SSD 3,27% (vs 2,39% before)

 

Of note are a decrease in Power Supply and hard drive failure rates, but an increase in SSD and GPU failure rates. The culprits heavily affected these results (name Sapphire GPUs and OCZ SSDs). In the next period things seem to improve for both of those manufacturers due to the disappearance (discontinuation) of problematic series. 

 

Article posted on October 30th, 2013:

 

Compared to the previous period, failure rates evolved in this way:

-Motherboards 1,9% (vs 1,99% before)
-Power supplies 1,5% (vs 1,45% before)

-Memory/RAM 0,76% (vs 0,81% before)

-Graphics cards 2,1% (vs 2,13% before)

-Hard drives 1,07% (vs 1,53% before)

- SSD 1,27% (vs 3,27% before)

 

We noticed that there was a strong improvement in hard drives, a logical consequence that follows the lowering of failure rates in the industry leaders, Western Digital and Seagate. The SSD failure rates also tumbles, the result of a lowered failure rate for OCZ, now thankfully far from the abysmal failure rates of the Petrol and Octane series. 

 

To end this article, here are the 5 products that had the most important amounts of failure rates for each categories between April and October 2013 (all had minimum samples of 100). These rates will be brought to augment by the next update due to the return rate not being important enough during this time period:

 

Motherboards:

- 5,22% ASRock 970 Pro3
- 5,03% ASRock Z77 Pro3
- 4,39% ASUS Maximus VI Hero
- 4,39% ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
- 3,86% ASRock H87M

 

Power supplies:

- 3,73% Corsair GS700 2013

- 3,62% Seasonic P-760
- 3,48% Thermaltake SP-650MPCBEU
- 2,83% Cooler Master GX 550W
- 2,82% Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850

 

Memory/RAM:

- 4,59% Corsair XMS3 4 GB DDR3 1333 CL9
- 4,06% Corsair Value Select SO-DIMM 8 GB DDR3 1333
- 3,67% G.Skill SODIMM 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 1333 CL9
- 3,61% Corsair XMS 4 GB (2x2) DDR3 1333 CL9
- 3,52% Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 1600 CL10

 

Graphics cards:

- 10,34% Gigabyte R795WF3-3GD
- 9,97% Sapphire HD 7950 With Boost (21196-00)
- 5,04% MSI R7970 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC BE
- 4,93% Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 XT With Boost
- 4,80% MSI N6200-512D2H/LP AGP
- 4,50% MSI N780 TF 3GD5/OC
- 4,27% Sapphire Vapor X HD 7970 GHz Edition
- 4,19% ASUS GTX670-DC2-2GD5
- 4,06% MSI R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC BE

 

Hard Drives:

- 3,44% Toshiba DT01ACA300 3 TB

- 2,31% Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB WD20EARX 
- 2,03% WD Black Desktop 4 TB SATA 6Gb/s WD4001FAEX 
- 1,83% WD Blue SE Desktop 320 GB IDE WD3200AAJB 
- 1,51% Seagate NAS HDD 3 TB ST3000VN000

 

SSD:

- 6,00% OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB
- 3,65% OCZ Vector 128 GB
- 3,45% OCZ Vector 256 GB
- 2,97% OCZ Vertex 450 128 GB
- 2,83% Crucial V4 128 GB

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

Source (all in French of course): 

May 10th, 2013 article http://www.hardware.fr/articles/893-1/taux-retour-composants-8.html

October 30th, 2013 article http://www.hardware.fr/articles/911-1/taux-retour-composants-9.html

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I will repeat this again in case you have skipped over this: these statistics are limited to products sold by this large French e-vendor, and returns done specifically to said vendor, which is not always the case because people will sometimes return the product to the manufacturer, however this is a minority of the cases. This means that the actual failure rates are likely higher (the exception being Toshiba hard drives, which can only be returned to the retailer). 

 

Edit: ooooooh s**t, just looks like I translated the wrong article. I translated the one posted in May 2013, while there is an article with newer numbers from October 2013. I'll try to update it to the October one when I have the time. 

Edit 7: Intro, Motherboard, Power Supply/PSU were all updated to include both articles and proofread.

Edit 8: Memory/RAM and Graphics cards were updated to include both articles and proofread

Edit 9: Whole thing is finally complete, proofread and all after 4 hours straight of formatting and translating  :lol:

 

I look forward to translating another one of these articles next time they post one (probably in a couple months)   
Although these articles are not definitive proof of the superiority of one brand's reliability over the other because they only encompass retailer return rates and are done in a country with considerably less PC builders (France), they should give people a decent idea of particular components that have very high retailer return rates, and I hope these numbers help you perhaps make a decision in your next purchase. 

[Jvagle875]

I'm always weary of anonymous sources. Although what did surprise me was the really low failure rate of RAM.

[gastew15]

Yay! I contributed to the AsRock 990FX Extreme 3 number... A proud RMA recipient... (A bit of an angry one too after it taking 2 months) I'm curious how they got ahold of all these numbers? All of them seem pretty reasonable though. ( Alot are really good & low )

[helping]

you're a good man OP

can you provide the source though?

[hawaiims]

you're a good man OP

can you provide the source though?

Oops forgot the source... I'll post it right now. Again, the post is still in progress (will probably be done in around half an hour)

 

 

Yay! I contributed to the AsRock 990FX Extreme 3 number... A proud RMA recipient... (A bit of an angry one too after it taking 2 months) I'm curious how they got ahold of all these numbers? All of them seem pretty reasonable though. ( Alot are really good & low )

Introduction explains how they got those numbers. Calculations were performed by the website which posted this lengthy article; hardware.fr

 

 

I'm always weary of anonymous sources. Although what did surprise me was the really low failure rate of RAM.

I'll post the source right now, I forgot unfortunately and am still in the process of finishing the translation. Retailer is unnamed for obvious reasons (probably an employee that doesn't want to get fired) and the source website (hardware.fr) is a fairly respected source. 

[JewishBacon]

hmmm. either master level troll, or does not know how to put a source.................

[Imabigmac]

This is really cool and there's some potential for changing some suggestions of products. Now this is definitely a very interesting really glad to have read this.

[hawaiims]

hmmm. either master level troll, or does not know how to put a source.................

source was posted recently, I am still in the process of finishing the translation as noted in OP.

[Almercenary]

Yep, some of those I can backup

[Vitalius]

Well, this is great.

It's funny, we give ASRock crap, but I don't think the price difference and/or feature difference for that price is worth an 0.02% chance increase of failure rate. In other words, I'm willing to buy an ASRock board regardless of that because they tend to be cheaper and more feature heavy. Though some aren't those two things. 

Just avoid those specific motherboards. 

I think the other thing to take away from this is that most manufacturer's failure rates are so close (like with motherboards), that we shouldn't pick manufacturer based on them. They're all pretty great regardless, except for the outliers.

For the GPUs, I wonder why XFX isn't in there. 

Also, please fix the article. It's using black font in some places for Dark Theme users. This means it's very hard to read without highlighting and there's a lot of it.

To fix that, copy the section, then Ctrl + Shift + V paste it, or right click and click "Paste as Plain Text". It will remove all formatting, so you'll have to redo that if you did some (like boldened headlines and such) but it's not that much.

[Blue fellow]

Seagate isn't doing so bad 

[Cwazywazy]

Aw yeah. I have Kingston RAM and a Seagate drive. (The RAM is both overclocked to 1820MHz and undervolted to 1.56v from 1.65 stock )

 

I do have a MSI motherboard with a couple issues though..

[Guest]

Seems about right. We even get more returns on WD drives over Barracudas and OCZ went bust because of their quality.

[hawaiims]

Well, this is great.

It's funny, we give ASRock crap, but I don't think the price difference and/or feature difference for that price is worth an 0.02% chance increase of failure rate. In other words, I'm willing to buy an ASRock board regardless of that because they tend to be cheaper and more feature heavy. Though some aren't those two things. 

Just avoid those specific motherboards. 

I think the other thing to take away from this is that most manufacturer's failure rates are so close (like with motherboards), that we shouldn't pick manufacturer based on them. They're all pretty great regardless, except for the outliers.

For the GPUs, I wonder why XFX isn't in there. 

Also, please fix the article. It's using black font in some places for Dark Theme users. This means it's very hard to read without highlighting and there's a lot of it.

To fix that, copy the section, then Ctrl + Shift + V paste it, or right click and click "Paste as Plain Text". It will remove all formatting, so you'll have to redo that if you did some (like boldened headlines and such) but it's not that much.

 

The reason why manufacturers might not be in there is either that A) XFX does not sell stuff in France B) Particular online vendor from which statistics are pulled does not sell XFX products

This is still a work in progress that I am in the process of updating. I at least changed everything to 14 point Times New Roman so it looks a bit more uniform, and i'll do the whole font color thing as soon as I get the time to do it

 

 

Seems about right. We even get more returns on WD drives over Barracudas and OCZ went bust because of their quality.

 

Yeah the numbers seem about right, although there are some surprises. 

Again, we have to keep in mind that all these numbers are according to retailer statistics and therefore the actual failure rates (apart from the exception of Toshiba hard drives) are higher than those reported in this post. 

[Vitalius]

This is still a work in progress that I am in the process of updating. I at least changed everything to 14 point Times New Roman so it looks a bit more uniform, and i'll do the whole font color thing as soon as I get the time to do it

Just an FYI, the font color should be done first, or you will have to redo every other formatting thing again because it will erase it. No, there's no easier way to do it that doesn't reset the formatting for everything else. I've tried. Can't find a thing.

[hawaiims]

Just an FYI, the font color should be done first, or you will have to redo every other formatting thing again because it will erase it. No, there's no easier way to do it that doesn't reset the formatting for everything else. I've tried. Can't find a thing.

Hmmmm... is it possible to perhaps set the font color as automatic? or have the Bold and/or highlighted parts as another color people with black themes can read such as red? 

[Vitalius]

Hmmmm... is it possible to perhaps set the font color as automatic? or have the Bold and/or highlighted parts as another color people with black themes can read such as red? 

Maybe red will work, but automatic never worked for me.

[helping]

dat 52% OCZ octane 

 

how did that make it passed testing

[Ryan Leech]

Most RMAs are the result of stupidity.

[hawaiims]

dat 52% OCZ octane 

 

how did that make it passed testing

Probably a big part of the reason why OCZ went bankrupt. Their Octane and Petrol series were their mainstream lines of SSDs (as opposed to the back then expensive flagship Vertex series) Not to mention that these are just return rates for the retailer. In reality the return rate is probably around 70% or more because of returns to the manufacturer, or even more (because all these numbers in the post only show possible failure between 0 to 365 days of use). They must have lost so much money on them, I have no idea why they didn't just discontinue or stop shipping them as soon as these huge issues came out.

 

Heck, this whole Petrol and Octane debacle cost OCZ their whole reputation and is probably the reason for their demise. Even though OCZ used to be a respected and also the largest consumer SSD brand and they fixed their issues now , people are now associating OCZ with unreliable and almost no one buys their SSDs anymore. 

[Nastydude]

Excellent Thread!

 

I, unfortunately, fell victim to 2x 128gb OCZ Petrol drives.

 

 

RMA'd them and got 2x Brand New Vertex 4's, they have been working great ever since!

[KamiKatze]

Seems about right. We even get more returns on WD drives over Barracudas and OCZ went bust because of their quality.

 

But isn't this because people buy more WD than Seagate?

It's the same with PSUs. It's no miracle that the top most returned PSUs are Corsair because they are also the top most bought PSUs.

 

I think this article is highly questionable. Except the percentage numbers ofc, those must be viewed differently.

[Guest]

But isn't this because people buy more WD than Seagate?

It's the same with PSUs. It's no miracle that the top most returned PSUs are Corsair because they are also the top most bought PSUs.

 

I think this article is highly questionable. Except the percentage numbers ofc, those must be viewed differently.

No - we sell about 50/50 WD's vs Seagate at work yet we still get more WD's coming back to us. I've also seen a school that had about a 12% defect rate on non-user error issues with WD 2.5" 320GB Blues.

[Fuzzy_Ball]

WD fans in shame. Seagate rejoice

[nothingspecial]

My issue with all of this data is that it isn't clear what the percentages are weighted against. Are they weighted against eachother or number of units sold?

 

For instance, how many people/OEMs are using Corsair PSUs compared to Cooler Master units? More units = higher % failiure rate.