Which storage is most likely to break? Backblaze drive statistics released for Q3 2024
Backblaze, a cloud storage service provider, operates a total of more than 280,000 drives and publishes the failure rate of storage devices by manufacturer and model every quarter. In its third quarter 2024 report published by Backblaze on November 12, 2024, the annual failure rate (AFR) of 288,076 drives was reported, excluding 471 drives, including models with low usage, models with short operation days, and drives that exceeded the operating temperature specified by the manufacturer.
Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2024
First, below is the AFR for the third quarter of 2024. The AFR for this quarter is 1.89%, up from 1.71% in the previous quarter. Although this is only a reference value due to the small number of units and days in operation, Seagate's 14TB HDD ST14000NM000J did not break down even once during an average operation of 7.4 months. On the other hand, Seagate's 12TB HDD ST12000NM0007 dropped out by 11.77% after an average operation of 58.4 months.
The increase in AFR is not due to the aging of the 4TB drives, but rather because Backblaze is using its internal migration system to replace the 4TB drives with larger capacity drives. The AFR for the 4TB drives that were not replaced this quarter was 0.26%.
The main factor driving up the failure rate was the 8TB drives that had been in operation for an average of more than seven years, with the AFR for 8TB drives increasing from 2.31% in the previous quarter to 3.04% this quarter.
The nature of drive failure can be summarized by manufacturer in the table below: 'Reactive failure' is one that causes the drive to crash or become inoperable, while 'Proactive failure' is anything other than that.
| Manufacturer | Reactive Failures | Proactive Failure | Total Failures | Reactive Failure Rate | Proactive Failure Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HGST | 194 | 177 | 371 | 52.3% | 47.7% |
| Seagate | 258 | 272 | 530 | 48.7% | 51.3% |
| Toshiba | 124 | 221 | 345 | 35.9% | 64.1% |
| WDC | 64 | 51 | 115 | 55.7% | 44.3% |
There were 1,361 drive failures across 29 drive models in the quarter, of which 640 (47%) were reactive failures and the remaining 721 were proactive failures.
Backblaze also publishes lifetime failure rates over the lifespan of its drives, covering models with more than 500 units in operation at the end of the period and with more than 100,000 cumulative days in their lifespan. After excluding drives that did not meet the criteria, 286,892 drives in 25 models remained for analysis.
The drive's lifetime AFR fell to 1.31% from 1.47% in the previous quarter.
| period | Number of drives | Number of days | breakdown | Lifetime AFR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2024 | 283,065 | 469,219,469 | 18,949 | 1.47% |
| Q3 2024 | 286,892 | 398,476,931 | 14,308 | 1.31% |
Related Posts:
in Hardware, Posted by log1l_ks