Nov 04, 2021 11:32:00

Backblaze releases 2021 Q3 version of failure rate report calculated from HDD operation data of more than 190,000 units

Backblaze , a cloud storage service provider, provides HDD failure rate data for the third quarter of 2021 (July to September) based on the operational data of more than 190,000 storage units operating on its own data center. published.

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2021
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q3-2021/

As of September 30, 2021, Backblaze operates a total of four data centers on two continents. These data centers operate 194,749 storage units, of which 3,537 are boot drives and 191,212 are used as data drives. Of the boot drives, 1557 are HDDs, 1980 are SSDs, and all data drives are HDDs. Of the data drives, 386 were for testing and were models with less than 60 units, so they were excluded from verification, and the final failure rate was calculated from the operational status of 198,26 units.

Below is a table summarizing the failure rates for the third quarter of 2021. The storage subject to verification was 198,26 units operated as data drives, the total number of HDD operation days in the third quarter of 2021 was 17,031,430 days, and the total number of failed HDDs was 515 units, for a total year. The mean failure rate (AFR) is 1.10%. In the second quarter of 2021, AFR rose for the first time in about a year (1.01%), but the result was that AFR rose further this term.

Of the HDDs operated by

Backblaze, only HGST's 12TB 'HUH721212ALE600' achieved 0% in AFR. Of the more than 60 HDDs in operation, only one failed HDD: HGST's 12TB 'HUH728080ALE600', Seagate's 6TB 'ST6000DX000', Toshiba's 4TB 'MD04ABA400V', Toshiba's 14TB 'MG07ACA14TEY', WDC Only 5 models of 16TB 'WUH721816ALE6L0'. Among them, 'ST6000DX000' has an average operating life of 77.8 months, and 'MD04ABA400V' has an average operating life of 75.6 months, which is very long, so it is 'worthy of praise,' Backblaze said.

Backblaze uses SSDs and HDDs as boot drives, and in order to verify the question 'Is SSD really more reliable than HDD?', SSD AFR is also calculated quarterly. .. The graph below shows the AFR of HDD (blue line) and SSD (red line). Although SSD has a slightly lower AFR, the transition of AFR for 4 years (2014-2017) from the start of HDD operation and SSD for the third quarter of 2018-2021 is very similar. I am. Since the AFR has risen at a stretch since the timing when the HDD operation period has become longer (2018), it is necessary to check how the SSD AFR will change in the future.

The following is a table showing the lifetime failure rate of HDDs operating as of September 30, 2021, aggregated from April 2013 to September 30, 2021. The AFR of all HDDs in operation continues to decrease, and the AFR value of '1.43%' is said to be the lowest since the start of aggregation in 2013.

The HDDs with the lowest AFR by capacity, as revealed by the HDD lifetime failure rate statistics, are 16TB for Toshiba's 'MG08ACA16TEY', 14TB for WDC's '

WUH721414ALE6L4 ', 12TB for HGST's ' HUH721212ALE600 ', and 10TB for Seagate. 'ST10000NM0086', 8TB was HGST's ' HUH728080ALE600 ', 6TB was Segate's 'ST6000DX000', and 4TB was HGST's 'HMS5C4040BLE640'.