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back to article Aw, snap: Independent disk drive failure rates from Backblaze

Backup and cloud storage provider Backblaze’s latest quarterly disk failure rate table shows WD 6TB drives had an 11.31 per cent annualised failure rate in the third 2016 quarter, with Seagate 4TB drives spinning into the ground almost as often, with a 10.2 per cent rate. Having one in 10 or worse drive failure rates is not …

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is very helpful.

    If we could get similar data on consumer drives then we could quickly determine which vendors to buy & which to avoid.

    ElReg, please do such tests for your own use & that of your readers, or find a reputable site that has already done so & let us know about it.

    Thanks!

    0 0 Reply
    1. tony72
      Reply Icon

      Re: This is very helpful.

      Umm, these are consumer drives that Backblaze uses, are they not? At least that used to be the case.

      Not sure it would be in any way practical for El Reg to test a sufficient quantity of a sufficient range of drives to be worth doing, unless they were going into business as a cloud storage provider or something.

      2 0 Reply
    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: This is very helpful.

      I'd love to do that sort of testing. Sadly, the drive manufacturers don't seem keen on giving me hundreds or thousands of free drives...

      Open to practical ideas of how to get hold of enough units to do proper testing. I'm sure I could come up with something to fill them all with...

      0 0 Reply
    3. mi1400
      Reply Icon

      Re: This is very helpful.

      I am personally a pro WD-HDDs & Samsung-SSDs guy but I find quite some dishonesty about seagate here from backblaze and then same from AlReg too... either of both should have notified that DX series of Seagate in this chart are also reliable. AlReg very vaguely even perhaps they themselves could not see in there article comment "Third from the bottom is Seagate’s ST4000DX000 4TB drive with a 4.9 per cent failure rate" ... is that they are infect mentioning a separate seagate class i.e. DX series.

      decoding seagate DM & DX...via a comment on gaming.youtube.com

      GoFlex Desk units contain Barracuda XT drives (DX), Backup Plus units contain either Barracuda (DM) or Barracuda XT drives (DX)

      https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=iN2ikVYBLK8&list=FLjYoufbBz0YBOsQw3qNPqAw

      https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26140.0

      0 0 Reply
  3. tony72
    Paris Hilton

    I am concerned

    My porn collection is on a 6TB WD drive. It's a WD Blue, whereas the WD60EFRX used by Backblaze is a WD Red NAS drive, but my understanding is that the only difference is that the Reds have their firmware tweaked to be more reliable for 24/7 NAS use compared to the equivalent Blue drives. Better check those backups, eh.

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