Hard Drive Reliability Stats

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An interesting look at failure rates in 3-12TB hard drives. HGST looks like a very reliable brand. One of the Seagate models had a 29% failure rate!

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2017/

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At the end of 2017 we had 93,240 spinning hard drives. Of that number, there were 1,935 boot drives and 91,305 data drives. This post looks at the hard drive statistics of the data drives we monitor. We’ll review the stats for Q4 2017, all of 2017, and the lifetime statistics for all of the drives Backblaze has used in our cloud storage data centers since we started keeping track. Along the way we’ll share observations and insights on the data presented and we look forward to you doing the same in the comments.
 
I have an old WD 500gb that we use to dump family pictures on . Also have about 300 GB of MP3 music on it. It has been dropped several times and still works it is at least 8-10 years old, perhaps the old external HDs are more durable.
 
HGST has been the oem brand in non-ssd equipped dell business computers for the past year or so, I have a pile of them from users that updated to ssd.
 
I've seen lots of external drives where the PC boards are baked, they run hot and don't have enough cooling
so data gets lost. Then there's another group where the read/write disk area and heads fail.

About 50% of the dead drives I come across I can save, often the PC board has fine contact pads
that mate with pressure contact pins on the sealed drive, these pads often look a little oxidized by heat, so
I gently polish them with a soft white eraser, or ink eraser if it's really bad, wipe down with a
bit of alcohol, burnish the contact pins on the drive and remount the PC board.

Of course, the PC board is held on with very tiny Torx screws, often the anti-tamper type, so you gotta
have those first! PC boards are very thin double sided and flex, so support them evenly when working on them.
 
backblaze stats dont directly translate to a personal computer with a couple hdd in it.

they pack a ton of hdd in this box and some are more tolerant to vibration, heat etc.
 
Every major brand is in the OEM business.

Most of the reliability issues in HD is the design. Typically if they figure out how to make it dense so they do not have to fly the heads too low, it will be reliable. This is why I always buy a drive almost a generation older so there's enough data and reviews on the internet (newegg).
 
Number one cause of failure of spinning disk will be bumping them while they are running. After you shut one down the R/W heads PARK and are mechanically held OFF the disk surfaces and so can take a shock. While running it is easy for them to crash into the spinning disk and become damaged.

Although theyre called Laptops ...you shouldnt really use it on your lap :) On your lap usually the fans clog with fibers and fuzzies then the heat cooks the innards slowly.
 
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