Interesting report from Backblaze

[YARDofSTUF]

Even from the same manufacturer there are some big differences. The least reliable drives are 1.5TB Seagate Barracudas that are nearing four years old on average, with an astonishing 25.4 percent annual failure rate. The newest Seagate drives, 4TB models, have a much more reasonable 3.8 percent annual failure rate. The units from Hitachi prove a lot more consistent, with the oldest drives, 2TB units averaging about three years old, having a failure rate of 1.1 percent, and the newest, 4TB units, having a 1.5 percent annual failure rate.

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...sks-are-equal/

[RaisinCain]

That's why I only buy enterprise WD drives. I have had no luck with the Seagates for quite awhile now.

[YeOldeStonecat]

BackBlaze has been releasing their "studies" on hard drives for a while now, but it's so "non real world".

*Drives put in servers with good power supplies
*In a very clean environment, good air circulation
*Very groomed cleaned power in a data center
*Climate controlled...at typical server room environment, 65*f and below 45% rh
*no vibrations, lumps, bumps.

A while ago they released a report saying they saw no differences between the 1 year warranty consumer drives and the 3 and 5 year warranty enterprise drives...I almost fell out of my chair laughing!

Interesting side note...yesterday I replaced the 5th out of 6 drives in a server (a NAS type BDR appliance, Datto Siris 3000).....within an 18 month period, all 6 drives originally Hitachi drives. Drives I've been replacing, WD Blacks.

Hitachi bought up IBM's hard drive division years ago. Back in the Win2K days...IBM DeskStars were nicknamed "DeathStars"...for a wicked insanely high failure rate, second to only the Quantum Bigfoot drives of the Win3 and Win95a era.

Anyways, yeah..we're pretty much all WD Black and the higher end WD RE series drives, some Seagates at times..but usually their enterprise grade "ES" series which we have good luck with.

[YARDofSTUF]

BackBlaze has been releasing their "studies" on hard drives for a while now, but it's so "non real world".
*no vibrations, lumps, bumps.

Actually they say they have a lot of vibration, and think thats why the "green" drives they have tried failed so badly. It may not be real world for the consumer, but neither is the MTBF ratings.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Unless they build their data center over a massive train station....dunno how they can say they have a ton of vibration. I've been in quite a few data centers, they're built with a lot of factors in mind from the floor up. Not to mention the chassis of the servers. Not to mention the drive cages for the drives. Not to mention that the drives will be in caddies designed to take away even more. So with all those basic things lined up...unless they hire some 10 year old kid to run up and down the rows of servers with a baseball bat whacking all the servers..how the living frick can they make the claim they're under a lot of vibration?

Just like when they first released part of that test last fall..they made the claim that they don't see any differences in "consumer" hard drives versus "enterprise" hard drives. I almost fell out of my chair laughing! That claim right there makes me laugh at anything they try to claim.

[YARDofSTUF]

They're words:

Two particular kinds of drives, Western Digital 3TB units and Seagate LP (low power) 2TB units, suffered extreme failure rates. However, the company believes that this is primarily due to the level of vibration in their drive cages which pack 45 disks into a 4U case, combined with both drives being energy-efficient models that aggressively spin down when not in use. These things are less likely to be an issue in regular desktop machines.

[YeOldeStonecat]

They're words:

"Their" when talking possessive.
They're is "they are".

[YARDofSTUF]

"Their" when talking possessive.
They're is "they are".

Their're-er words!