Backblaze Hard Drive Stats for Q3 2018: Less Is More

Megalith

Megalith

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Data storage provider Backblaze, which recently got rid of all its 3TB drives and introduced 12TB HGST drives, is back with another round of insight on how different brands are working out for the company. In the last quarter, Western Digital’s 6TB WD60EFRX had the worst annual failure rate (AFR) at 4.46%, although the sample size is negligible (5 bad drives out of 383 total). In the lifetime chart (April ’13 onward), Seagate’s 10TB is looking good with only a .48% AFR.

As of September 30, 2018 Backblaze had 99,636 spinning hard drives. Of that number, there were 1,866 boot drives and 97,770 data drives. This review looks at the quarterly and lifetime statistics for the data drive models in operation in our data centers. In addition, we’ll say goodbye to the last of our 3TB drives, hello to our new 12TB HGST drives, and we’ll explain how we have 584 fewer drives than last quarter, but have added over 40 petabytes of storage.
 
Full disclosure -former Seagate employee.

I run a 40ish TB plex server and backup at home. All but two are western digital drives.

I have 8tbX2 WD drives in a NAS one of the drives has been constatntly tripping reallocated sectors every few days for a year. My point being I was not surprised to see the 4% failure rate on mid sized WD.

I gotta give Seagate credit for improving their reliability which had been a sore point in these types of reports for most of the last decade. I actually might save myself wd price premium and upgrade Wd 8x2 to 12x2 seagate.
 
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well theres a dead 6tb wd red sitting on my desk atm with it top off and its platters on full display, at least its a nice ornament.
 
Shit, I was planning to pick up a WD recertified My Book with a WD60EFRX the next time they are available to replace two 3TB Toshiba HDDs so that I can go mITX.
 
Pretty good that across the board drive failures are plenty down. At this point, it seems you can throw a dart at a drive list map and probably be okay.
 
that seagate 12tb is an enterprise drive.

that's the life they are supposed to have.

backblaze made it's bones using consumer level drives in an environment they weren't meant for.

and only has a 1 year warranty. ouch.
 
Master_shake_ said:
that seagate 12tb is an enterprise drive.

that's the life they are supposed to have.

backblaze made it's bones using consumer level drives in an environment they weren't meant for.

and only has a 1 year warranty. ouch.
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You do realize that the literal only difference between Consumer/NAS/Enterprise drives is the sticker they put on them? Unless the drives have different cache levels and spindle speeds, they are just the same exact metal with different warranties.
 
On a side note, I just signed up for Backblaze backups.

I was like "where have you been all my life?!"

$5/month for unlimited backup? :eek: Had no idea it was this cheap.

Just got a nastygram from my ISP, telling me I exceeded my 1TB data limit. :D

Yeah, okay.
 
KazeoHin said:
You do realize that the literal only difference between Consumer/NAS/Enterprise drives is the sticker they put on them? Unless the drives have different cache levels and spindle speeds, they are just the same exact metal with different warranties.
Click to expand...

While the new BarraCuda Pro, SkyHawk, IronWolf Pro, and IronWolf hard drives featuring 14 TB capacity use the same platters, heads and other components, they are still very different products aimed at different applications.

The BarraCuda Pro HDDs are designed for desktops, which is why they are rated for a 300 TB/year workload, but do not feature extensive protection against vibrations (unlike server-grade HDDs), yet they come with Seagate’s Rescue data recovery services.

By contrast, the Skyhawk drives are aimed at surveillance systems that usually employ multiple HDDs, which is why the HDDs feature advance protection again vibration. As such, these drives are optimized to work for 24/7 and can record data from up to 64 HD cameras. Seagate rates Skyhawk HDDs for 180 TB/year workloads.

Moving on to IronWolf 14 TB and IronWolf Pro 14 TB hard drives for NAS. Both models are outfitted with rotational vibration sensors and feature the IronWolf health management technology. Meanwhile the IronWolf Pro version aimed at enterprise NAS, also has top-and-bottom attached motor, and comes with a five-year warranty. Besides, the IronWolf Pro is also considerably faster than the IronWolf when it comes to maximum sustained transfer rate (250 MB/s vs 210 MB/s).
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https://www.anandtech.com/show/13347/seagate-unveils-14-tb-consumer-hdds

same parts but the enterprise level drives are meant for a more hositile enviroment.

hence my original statement.
 
CCTL
KazeoHin said:
You do realize that the literal only difference between Consumer/NAS/Enterprise drives is the sticker they put on them? Unless the drives have different cache levels and spindle speeds, they are just the same exact metal with different warranties.
Click to expand...
Not quite, the NAS/enterprise drives generally have error tolerance capabilities (TLER or CCTL) superior in pre-failure identification compared to desktop and archive level drives.

And per the above intended for more hostile environments often meaning higher heat/running temperatures.
 
KazeoHin said:
"Same parts, but meant for different environments"

it's the warranty. Thats it. The warranty covers the hostile environment. The drive is not 'meant' for it. Prior to the sticker (and thus the warranty) being applied, it was identical to the consumer grade drive.
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the warranty for the consumer drive is longer than the one for the enterprise drive.

5v3 years.

it's not one like newegg stated. my bad.

on second look it's the same warranty.

5 years.
 
Looks like HGST is leading the way.

I have 4 HGST NAS currently with over 35K hours, zero issues which run pretty much 24/7
 
Those stats for the HGST drives reinforces my opinion that I will stick with that brand for the foreseeable future. I have had 8 HGST drives, 6X 4TB drives in a RAID 6 set, and not had a single failure for at least 6 years now.
 
It's an example how you can't really trust a brand. All of the drives that have broken on me, ever, have been Seagates (well, except one IBM Deathstar). WD has served me without flaw for 20 years.
 
dgingeri said:
Those stats for the HGST drives reinforces my opinion that I will stick with that brand for the foreseeable future. I have had 8 HGST drives, 6X 4TB drives in a RAID 6 set, and not had a single failure for at least 6 years now.
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And HGST used to be IBM which earned the nickname Deathstar for having huge failure rates lol. It depends totally of the driver model.
 
The past few years of these types of data analysis tells me that the Seagate Barracuda Pro is one hell of a stout and reliable HDD. Quite a change...
 
joobjoob said:
Full disclosure -former Seagate employee.

I run a 40ish TB plex server and backup at home. All but two are western digital drives.

I have 8tbX2 WD drives in a NAS one of the drives has been constatntly tripping reallocated sectors every few days for a year. My point being I was not surprised to see the 4% failure rate on mid sized WD.

I gotta give Seagate credit for improving their reliability which had been a sore point in these types of reports for most of the last decade. I actually might save myself wd price premium and upgrade Wd 8x2 to 12x2 seagate.
Click to expand...

Current WD employee then :D
 
B00nie said:
And HGST used to be IBM which earned the nickname Deathstar for having huge failure rates lol. It depends totally of the driver model.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they did, a long time ago. I know that all too well because I had one of those drives, but it didn't fail on me. It was at least 6 years old, and still working, when I finally dismantled it for the magnets inside.

Time change, and the behavior of a manufacturing department frequently changes when the company changes owners. The changes to the reliability of the Deskstar and Ultrastar lines happened almost immediately after Hitachi bought the division. HGST changed hands to WD, but they've managed to keep the reliability, despite WD's reputation, so far. We'll have to wait and see what happens in the future, but for now, they're quite reliable. As I said "for the foreseeable future", that doesn't necessarily mean forever.
 
B00nie said:
And HGST used to be IBM which earned the nickname Deathstar for having huge failure rates lol. It depends totally of the driver model.
Click to expand...


I owned one of the titular "deathstar" models.
Never had a problem with it...
 
I have multiple WD drives that are a decade or older still working. My main PC has a 1 TB WDC Black and a 4TB WDC black

My laptop also has a 750GB black
My PS3 has a 750GB black
Xbox 360 as a 5400 WDC

all still working just fine, have one Seagate that is still running...
 
B00nie said:
And HGST used to be IBM which earned the nickname Deathstar for having huge failure rates lol. It depends totally of the driver model.
Click to expand...
And now HGST is WD. We'll see if their reliability streak keeps on trucking. I know I've already switched over to Toshiba for spinning disks.
 
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