Cloud backup provider Backblaze has released its hard drive reliability statistics for 2020.
The company compiled the report from data on the active hard drives used in its daily operations – including Seagate, Toshiba, and HGST.
Reliability was measured as an annualised failure rate, calculated using the number of drive failures relative to the number of active drive days for each disk.
Backblaze recorded the number of failures for each hard drive from 1 January to 31 December 2020, extrapolating an annualised failure rate based on the number of days each drive was active.
The company tested a total of 162,299 hard throughout 2020, equating to a total of 51,267,791 days worth of hard drive operation across all products.
Backblaze noted that the annualised failure rate for drives with less than 250,000 drive days is not reflective of their performance due to the lack of data.
These drives are included in its report for completeless only.
“The Annualised Failure Rate (AFR) for 2020 dropped below 1% down to 0.93%,” Backblaze said.
“In 2019, it stood at 1.89%. That’s over a 50% drop year over year.”
The company attributed this improvement to the better performance of older drives and the addition of over 30,000 larger drives with better reliability in its environment.
“In other words, whether a drive was old or new, or big or small, they performed well in our environment in 2020,” Backblaze said.
2020 hard drive failure rates
The most reliable hard drives for 2020 are listed below, along with their annualised failure rates calculated from their performance during the quarter.
Model | Drives | Drive Days | Failures | Failure Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|
4TB Hard Drives | ||||
Toshiba MD04ABA400V | 99 | 36,234 | 0 | 0.00% |
HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 | 3,100 | 1,083,774 | 8 | 0.27% |
HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 | 12,744 | 4,663,049 | 34 | 0.27% |
Seagate ST4000DM000 | 18,939 | 6,983,470 | 269 | 1.41% |
6TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST6000DX000 | 886 | 324,275 | 2 | 0.23% |
8TB Hard Drives | ||||
HGST HUH728080ALE600 | 1,075 | 372,000 | 3 | 0.29% |
Seagate ST8000DM002 | 9,772 | 3,584,788 | 91 | 0.93% |
Seagate ST8000NM0055 | 14,406 | 5,286,790 | 177 | 1.22% |
10TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST10000NM0086 | 1,201 | 439,247 | 16 | 1.33% |
12TB Hard Drives | ||||
HGST HUH721212ALE600 | 2,600 | 820,272 | 7 | 0.31% |
HGST HUH721212ALN604 | 10,830 | 3,968,475 | 50 | 0.46% |
Seagate ST12000NM001G | 7,130 | 1,296,149 | 30 | 0.84% |
Seagate ST12000NM0008 | 19,287 | 5,329,149 | 148 | 1.01% |
Seagate ST12000NM0007 | 23,036 | 11,947,303 | 339 | 1.04% |
HGST HUH721212ALE604 | 2,506 | 275,779 | 9 | 1.19% |
14TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST14000NM0138 | 360 | 5,784 | 0 | 0.00% |
Toshiba MG07ACA14TEY | 160 | 2,562 | 0 | 0.00% |
WDC WUH721414ALE6L4 | 6,002 | 229,861 | 1 | 0.16% |
Toshiba MG07ACA14TA | 21,046 | 4,103,823 | 102 | 0.91% |
Seagate ST14000NM001G | 5,987 | 454,090 | 13 | 1.04% |
16TB Hard Drives | ||||
Toshiba MG08ACA16TEY | 1,014 | 33,774 | 0 | 0.00% |
Seagate ST16000NM001G | 59 | 21,323 | 1 | 1.71% |
18TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST18000NM000J | 60 | 5,820 | 2 | 12.54% |
Lifetime failure rates
The table below shows the reliability of hard drive models Backblaze had in service as of 31 December 2020.
The reporting period is from 1 April 2013 through 31 December 2020.
Model | Drives | Annualized Failure Rate | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
4TB Hard Drives | ||||
HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 | 12,744 | 0.42% | ||
HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 | 3,100 | 0.49% | ||
Toshiba MD04ABA400V | 99 | 0.67% | ||
Seagate ST4000DM000 | 18,939 | 2.52% | ||
6TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST6000DX000 | 886 | 0.97% | ||
8TB Hard Drives | ||||
HGST HUH728080ALE600 | 1,075 | 0.63% | ||
Seagate ST8000DM002 | 9,772 | 1.54% | ||
Seagate ST8000NM0055 | 14,406 | 1.22% | ||
10TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST10000NM0086 | 1,201 | 0.88% | ||
12TB Hard Drives | ||||
HGST HUH721212ALE600 | 2,600 | 0.38% | ||
HGST HUH721212ALN604 | 10,830 | 0.43% | ||
Seagate ST12000NM001G | 7,130 | 0.84% | ||
Seagate ST12000NM0008 | 19,287 | 1.02% | ||
HGST HUH721212ALE604 | 2,506 | 1.19% | ||
Seagate ST12000NM0007 | 23,036 | 2.01% | ||
14TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST14000NM0138 | 360 | 0.00% | ||
Toshiba MG07ACA14TEY | 160 | 0.00% | ||
WDC WUH721414ALE6L4 | 6,002 | 0.16% | ||
Toshiba MG07ACA14TA | 21,046 | 0.90% | ||
Seagate ST14000NM001G | 5,987 | 1.04% | ||
16TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST16000NM001G | 59 | 1.71% | ||
18TB Hard Drives | ||||
Seagate ST18000NM000J | 60 | 12.54% |
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