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How are people using Backblaze's excellent hard drive reliability reports in making purchasing decisions? For example when I search for HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 on

How are people using Backblaze's excellent hard drive reliability reports in making purchasing decisions? For example when I search for HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 on Amazon I get a dealer selling old out of warrantee drives as new. https://www.amazon.com/HGST-MegaScale-HMS5C4040ALE640-Coolspin-Enterprise/dp/B01K3UV65O https://www.amazon.com/HGST-MegaScale-HMS5C4040ALE640-Coolsp... I get similar results with many of the other drives listed and with other websites such as NewEgg.

comboy 10y ago
I don't always buy the exact models, but I've switched to HGST few years ago after studying Backblaze reports and so far, no regrets (I'm running heavily used postgres on these drives at home)
trowawee 10y ago
Note to self: stay the hell away from Western Digital. Good lord, an 8.2% annualized failure rate? That's unbelievable. They have the first, second, and third worst failure rates on that chart.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  A few years ago, you could have said the same for Seagate. Even worse, actually. Certain models had over 10% failure rate. Some WD models almost had HGST levels of relibility. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update...
  - trowawee 10y ago
    Hmmm. Curious. I wonder if Seagate has improved their production somehow to avoid those failure rates, because even with those previous very high rates, they fare much better on the 2013-2016 total chart.
    - theandrewbailey 10y ago
      They might have. But I also wonder if those drives were among the first after the 2011 Thailand floods, and if Seagate's factories were still a bit dirty after resuming production.
      - trowawee 10y ago
        Ahhh, didn't even think about that. That seems like it could be a definite possibility.
Llevel 10y ago
I chose to get 4 ST4000DM000 drives based on previous reports. Sure HGST drives never die, but it's cheaper to RMA or buy a single new drive if one fails, than the added cost of 4 reliable drives. Assuming only one fails, which is a risk I'm willing to take with my very non-mission-critical data. I don't read this as 'which drive to buy' but more as 'which drive not to buy'.
- brianwski 10y ago
  > HGST drives never die Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. I know you didn't mean that as an absolute, but I just want to point out 100% of drives fail. It's my OCD that makes me point this out. We have NEVER found a drive that lasted forever. There are two types of drives: 1) those that have already failed, and 2) those that are about to fail. For any data you would be annoyed to lose, you need three copies in three locations with three separate vendors (three different pieces of software that don't share any lines of code).
  - kikoreis 10y ago
    To be somewhat similarly OCD, if your software is controlling storage to each of those drives, then there are many shared LOC involved; indeed, this is the reason why async replication into separate clusters is always recommended for data which can't be lost.
  - mioelnir 10y ago
    18 disk zpool with three raidz2 vdevs, with 2 disks from 3 different vendors per vdev, bought in two batches per vendor and evenly spread across the case. That's about as paranoid as I consider practical for the homelab/online part of my storage needs. Also, not sure there are three pieces of storage software that I trust and are readily available to me.
ars 10y ago
I did, I picked HGST because of their reports. No problems so far. When you buy hard disks ONLY buy from Amazon or Newegg directly - never buy from a 3rd party seller on their site. Especially for hard disks there is too much fraud, and for a hard disk especially the risk of data loss makes it just too risky (unlike other items).
- discreditable 10y ago
  > When you buy hard disks ONLY buy from Amazon or Newegg directly - never buy from a 3rd party seller on their site. Agreed. A few times I've purchased third-party disks and found (via SMART data) that the drives were well used despite not being sold as such.
  - chiph 10y ago
    Just bought some drives that were fulfilled via Amazon (but not sold by Amazon.com LLC themselves). You've given me something to check when they arrive.
  - sigstoat 10y ago
    Just returned a "new" drive with 31k power on hours. I should've known when the drive wasn't in a standard WD antistatic bag.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kn0where 10y ago
FWIW, I happen to have the HGST HMS5C4040ALE640, which I purchased from Fry's Electronics earlier this year when it was on sale for ~$120ish.
e40 10y ago
For example when I search for HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 on Amazon I get a dealer selling old out of warrantee drives as new. We found this, as well. And we stopped trying to get the HGST drives after we got a bad batch from a seller on Amazon.
vinay427 10y ago
I also bought an HGST portable drive recently as they had one of the cheapest 7200rpm USB 3.0 offerings available online.

comboy 10y ago

I don't always buy the exact models, but I've switched to HGST few years ago after studying Backblaze reports and so far, no regrets (I'm running heavily used postgres on these drives at home)

trowawee 10y ago

Note to self: stay the hell away from Western Digital. Good lord, an 8.2% annualized failure rate? That's unbelievable. They have the first, second, and third worst failure rates on that chart.

theandrewbailey 10y ago
A few years ago, you could have said the same for Seagate. Even worse, actually. Certain models had over 10% failure rate. Some WD models almost had HGST levels of relibility. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update...
- trowawee 10y ago
  Hmmm. Curious. I wonder if Seagate has improved their production somehow to avoid those failure rates, because even with those previous very high rates, they fare much better on the 2013-2016 total chart.
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    They might have. But I also wonder if those drives were among the first after the 2011 Thailand floods, and if Seagate's factories were still a bit dirty after resuming production.
    - trowawee 10y ago
      Ahhh, didn't even think about that. That seems like it could be a definite possibility.

Llevel 10y ago

I chose to get 4 ST4000DM000 drives based on previous reports. Sure HGST drives never die, but it's cheaper to RMA or buy a single new drive if one fails, than the added cost of 4 reliable drives. Assuming only one fails, which is a risk I'm willing to take with my very non-mission-critical data. I don't read this as 'which drive to buy' but more as 'which drive not to buy'.

brianwski 10y ago
> HGST drives never die Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. I know you didn't mean that as an absolute, but I just want to point out 100% of drives fail. It's my OCD that makes me point this out. We have NEVER found a drive that lasted forever. There are two types of drives: 1) those that have already failed, and 2) those that are about to fail. For any data you would be annoyed to lose, you need three copies in three locations with three separate vendors (three different pieces of software that don't share any lines of code).
- kikoreis 10y ago
  To be somewhat similarly OCD, if your software is controlling storage to each of those drives, then there are many shared LOC involved; indeed, this is the reason why async replication into separate clusters is always recommended for data which can't be lost.
- mioelnir 10y ago
  18 disk zpool with three raidz2 vdevs, with 2 disks from 3 different vendors per vdev, bought in two batches per vendor and evenly spread across the case. That's about as paranoid as I consider practical for the homelab/online part of my storage needs. Also, not sure there are three pieces of storage software that I trust and are readily available to me.

ars 10y ago

I did, I picked HGST because of their reports. No problems so far. When you buy hard disks ONLY buy from Amazon or Newegg directly - never buy from a 3rd party seller on their site. Especially for hard disks there is too much fraud, and for a hard disk especially the risk of data loss makes it just too risky (unlike other items).

discreditable 10y ago
> When you buy hard disks ONLY buy from Amazon or Newegg directly - never buy from a 3rd party seller on their site. Agreed. A few times I've purchased third-party disks and found (via SMART data) that the drives were well used despite not being sold as such.
- chiph 10y ago
  Just bought some drives that were fulfilled via Amazon (but not sold by Amazon.com LLC themselves). You've given me something to check when they arrive.
- sigstoat 10y ago
  Just returned a "new" drive with 31k power on hours. I should've known when the drive wasn't in a standard WD antistatic bag.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kn0where 10y ago

FWIW, I happen to have the HGST HMS5C4040ALE640, which I purchased from Fry's Electronics earlier this year when it was on sale for ~$120ish.

e40 10y ago

For example when I search for HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 on Amazon I get a dealer selling old out of warrantee drives as new. We found this, as well. And we stopped trying to get the HGST drives after we got a bad batch from a seller on Amazon.

vinay427 10y ago

I also bought an HGST portable drive recently as they had one of the cheapest 7200rpm USB 3.0 offerings available online.