Backblaze, the makers of a cloud-based online backup service, has released the results of a hard drive reliability test for three leading manufacturers. The findings indicate two winners and one clear loser.
In terms of annual failure rates, Seagate led the way with, on average, almost 14% of their 1.5 terabyte drives failing within the first year. The failure rates of Seagate's 3TB and 4TB drives, while lower, still led all other manufacturers. A failure, according to Backblaze, constitutes having to replace a drive in a server pod.
While Western Digital followed closely behind, Hitachi drives still demonstrated a clear advantage with a lower than 2% percentage failure rate across their 2, 3, and 4TB offerings.
The results of the test are based on a wide range of models from all manufacturers, but Backblaze singled out the Seagate Barracuda Green 1.5TB drive as a particularly poor performer, exhibiting only an average age of 0.8 years.
In terms of the 36 month survival rate for each manufacturer, the order of results remained largely the same. After a noticeable amount of failures in the first few months, Hitachi and Western Digital held steady, suggesting that hard drives that survive the first year unscathed will likely serve users well in the future.
Seagate products, in comparison, experienced a number of precipitous drops during the 36 month study. By the end, only 73.5% of their drives had made it to the 36 month mark, a poor showing indeed.
Do your experiences support Blackblaze's findings? Let us know in the comments. Also, thanks to Odom for the news tip.
Source & Images: Backblaze
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