What Hard Drive Should I Buy? Backblaze Analysis

[keeplearnin 4]

Anyone else seen this analysis performed by Backblaze? My main thought being in a data-center I would think that only enterprise grade drives should be used but it looks like they are buying the cheapest and all kinds of consumer and enterprise grade drives and have some interesting results to present.

 

http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

 

[Joe_Miner 254]

Great find KeepLearnin!!!  http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

 

In their conclusion:

 

".... We are focusing on 4TB drives for new pods. For these, our current favorite is the Seagate Desktop HDD.15 (ST4000DM000). We’ll have to keep an eye on them, though. Historically, Seagate drives have performed well at first, and then had higher failure rates later.

Our other favorite is the Western Digital 3TB Red (WD30EFRX).  ...."

 

I wonder now it they haven't shifted to the 4TB's Seagate NAS and WD Red?  http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/5790/nas-hdd-showdown-wd-red-vs-seagate-nas/index.html

 

Good read and good info

Edited January 21, 2014 by Joe_Miner

[keeplearnin 4]

Ya good point John about the 4TB. I would be surprised if they didn't try to migrate a lot of hard drives that are failing to specifically 4TB drives. I know one thing, it makes me feel good that I am running reds in my own setup at home, which probably don't see 1/1000th the number of reads Backblaze does haha.

[schoondoggy 895]

His last two posts are interesting as well;

http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/11/12/how-long-do-disk-drives-last/

http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/12/04/enterprise-drive-reliability/

[Joe_Miner 254]

Thanks Schoondoggy!  Those are great reads!

[ikon 439]

Yes, I've read the BackBlaze blog postings in the past. They seem to have some interesting ideas for testing and evaluation. I also like how they tell you how you can build your own BackBlaze unit.

[Drashna Jaelre 159]

Wow, it's been a while since I've seen backblaze mentioned.

 

Takeaway: WD seem to be longer living. The only benefit to enterprise drives is the warranty.

Also, Green and LP drives suck. Failures right out of factory (supports the "poor quality" theory).

 

 

So I guess I'll be switching to WD now....

[ikon 439]

The Hitachi are certainly impressive. It's just too bad they're so hard to get around me.

[Joe_Miner 254]

Wow, after reading this article Stablebit Scanner found one and then later another ST3000DM001 failing/failed in my WHS2011 box!  Both drives were over 1.5yrs old!  Yikes!

[ikon 439]

JM, looks like you've run into the same issue I had with many Seagates and WD Greens I've tried. It's not that the drives die outright; it's that they start to exhibit odd issues over time. The most common issue for me is a higher than expected/acceptable rate of sector reallocation. I've seen particularly with Greenies, which is why I only use the remaining ones I have for backup purposes, where they only get used intermittently, and I SpinRite them often.