After all, if a drive can handle years of punishment in a data center, then running one at home should be a comparative cakewalk. On the one hand, they have a massive number of drives to test, and push them much harder than home users would run them, lending credence to their statistics. ![]() Differing Environmentsīackblaze uses consumer drives in an enterprise environment, making their statistics a double-edged sword for regular consumers. So surely, the data they provide is invaluable to average consumers… right? Well, maybe not. They provide detailed reports of how their drives perform through each quarter, as well as a yearly report. How Useful Is Backblaze Data for Consumers?įor over a decade, Backblaze has been in the big data industry. In Backblaze’s data center, the HGST HUH721212ALE600 takes third place on the reliability chart.Īt an average age of just over 27 months (roughly 2 years), these drives possess an impressive 0.27% AFR, with only 7 drives out of 2,600 failing in 2021. However, they boast a similar AFR at just 0.14%, with only 1 out of 1,767 drives failing through 2021. 16 TB WDC WUH721816ALE6L0Ĭontrary to the reliable senior Seagate drives Backblaze runs, the WDC WUH721816ALE6L0 is among the youngest drives in the lineup with an average of just 5 months. With an average age of 80.4 months (almost 7 years), the AFR of the drives is a mere 0.11%, with only 1 out of 886 drives failing during 2021. These drives sharply contrast the failure rates of many of the other Seagate drives they’re running. One of the oldest drives in Backblaze’s setup, the Seagate ST6000DX000 seems like a rock-solid performer. Instead, we’ll just briefly cover the top three most dependable hard drives according to their data before looking at some other things. We won’t go through the whole list of drives. ![]() Now that you know who Backblaze is and have some context regarding their report, we can delve into the data. ![]() Shop Helix Backblaze’s Findings – The 3 Most Dependable Hard Drives in 2021 Get customizable top of the line PCs for less. If you’re interested in the math, Backblaze offers a succinct explanation and the formula they use to calculate the AFR in their 2021 report. So, if a drive has an AFR of 1.5%, then it’s safe to assume the drive has a 1.5% chance of failing through a year of use. These drives do not contain any operating system files and are used separately to increase reliability and reduce downtime if operating system issues arise.Īs Backblaze mentions in its report, the company manages and provides stats for 203,168 data drives.ĪFR – The annualized failure rate (AFR) – not to be confused with annual failure rate – is essentially the estimated likelihood that a drive will fail during a full year of daily use. Of the total 206,928 drives Backblaze manages, 3,760 were boot drives that were not included in their drive stats report.ĭata Drive – A drive solely used for storing data. ![]() Starting With Contextīefore we get into the weeds, let’s break down some jargon and add a bit of context so that you have a better frame of reference going forward.īoot Drive – A drive that the computer boots the operating system from. But Backblaze – a cloud storage and data backup company that formed in 2007 – has been doing this for years with consumer drives and sharing their findings publicly for free. Of course, that’s not feasible for most consumers. If you think about it, one of the best ways to test hard drives for reliability is to run a huge number of them for years and take note on how they all fare. But how do you know when you’ve found a reliable drive? So, when you’re looking for a hard drive to store your family photos, videos, and other data, you want something that’s going to last. With our lives becoming increasingly digitized, the need for reliable data storage is at an all-time high. Today, data is considered one of the most precious resources in the world.
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