Backblaze, which operates 310,000 HDDs, releases HDD failure rate statistics by manufacturer and model for the first quarter of 2025
Cloud storage service provider Backblaze has released data summarizing the failure rates of 312,831 hard disk drives it operates by manufacturer and model in the first quarter of 2025 (January to March).
Backblaze Drive Stats for Q1 2025
Backblaze released statistical data on storage that met the conditions of '100 or more drives in operation' and a total of 10,000 or more days of operation as of March 31, 2025. As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, 312,831 drives were in operation as storage, but a total of 318,426 storages were monitored throughout the quarter, of which 317,833 were reported. The cumulative number of days of operation was 27,388,225 days.
According to the data, the application failure rate (AFR) for the first quarter of 2024 was 1.42%, up slightly from 1.35% in the previous quarter and roughly the same as the 1.41% recorded in the same period last year.
In particular, HGST's (Western Digital) 4TB HDD
On the other hand, Seagte's ST10000NM0086 (10TB) recorded failure rates of 4.72%, ST12000NMZ007 (12TB) recorded 9.47%, ST14000NM0138 (14TB) recorded 6.82%, and HGST's HUH721212ALE604 (14TB) recorded 4.97% failure rates, which were cited as being particularly high.
Seagate's ST24000NM002H (24TB) had a 0% failure rate last quarter, but this quarter saw eight failures, bringing the failure rate to 1.11%. However, the average failure rate for HDDs over 20TB was 0.72%, which is lower than the failure rate for HDDs overall.
Below is a table summarizing the lifetime failure rate as of the end of the first quarter of 2025. The statistics cover 312,493 units in total, with more than 500 units in operation and more than 100,000 cumulative operating days. The lifetime failure rate as of the end of the first quarter of 2025 is 1.32%, almost unchanged from the 1.31% reported at the end of 2024.
While the 12TB and 14TB drives experienced similar numbers of failures, Toshiba's MG10ACA20TE (20TB) and Western Digital's WUH722222ALE6L4 (22TB) experienced an increase in failures, but at the same time, the number of drives in the fleet increased significantly, which increased the cumulative number of operating days for the drives in question, resulting in a statistically improved failure rate.
While Western Digital's drives are among the best in terms of failure rates, HGST's 12TB drives have higher failure rates, especially the HUH721212ALN604, which recorded a failure rate of 2.06%, which is higher than the average. However, the HUH721212ALN604 has an average lifespan of 67.1 months, or about 5.5 years, which is in line with the expected failure rate pattern known as the ' bathtub curve ', so Backblaze considers this figure to be within an acceptable range. On the other hand, the HUH721212ALE604 has a failure rate of 1.45%, which is not a significant deviation from the overall average, so there is no major concern, and Backblaze said it will continue to monitor it.
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in Hardware, Posted by log1i_yk