New study finds HGST, WD hard drives fail less often than Seagate and Toshiba

A new peer-reviewed study focusing on hard drive reliability has analyzed the performance of 443,000 hard drives from Backblaze. The findings indicate that hard drives produced by HGST and Western Digital (WD) fail less frequently than those manufactured by Seagate and Toshiba. Specifically, the research demonstrates that Seagate and Toshiba HDDs fail at approximately twice the rate of those from WD and HGST. This data provides a concrete ranking of manufacturer reliability based on real-world usage over a substantial period of time. Coverage of these findings has appeared across multiple technology publications.

Tom's Hardware provides a detailed breakdown, noting that the study analyzed 1.66 million drive-years to arrive at its conclusions. According to Tom's Hardware, HGST is ranked as the most reliable manufacturer, while Toshiba is ranked as the least reliable. Other outlets reporting on the data include TechSpot, which highlights the lower failure rates of HGST and WD, and Blocks & Files, which reports that HDD failure rates by manufacturer have been revealed. Context provided by Korben suggests a broader industry trend where hard drives are becoming increasingly reliable over time. This specific study matters because it utilizes a massive sample size from Backblaze to quantify the difference in failure rates between the four major players in the HDD market.

By utilizing 1.66 million drive-years of data, the study moves beyond anecdotal evidence to provide a peer-reviewed analysis of how different brands perform under operational stress in a large-scale environment. Future attention will likely focus on how these failure rates evolve as hard drive technology continues to advance. The current data establishes a clear performance gap, with Seagate and Toshiba exhibiting roughly double the failure frequency of their competitors. Observers will be monitoring whether these reliability rankings shift in subsequent analyses of Backblaze's drive fleets or if the trend toward overall increased reliability mentioned by Korben will eventually close the gap between the highest and lowest performing manufacturers.