3 ms·

Brian from Backblaze here. > It's like a gift. We're glad you like it! It isn't hard for us, and we get a little press out of it so it is TOTALLY worth it fo

Brian from Backblaze here. > It's like a gift. We're glad you like it! It isn't hard for us, and we get a little press out of it so it is TOTALLY worth it for us to do. Once we setup all the analysis scripts to pull the data, it's mostly just an automated system. What baffles me is why nobody else reports drive failure stats? I mean, people hear about Backblaze and buy our product because we're providing this data, why don't any OTHER companies want this free stream of customers?

agumonkey 9y ago
Hello, I have no idea why and am wondering too. Maybe a tradition of closeness, or they didn't think it would matter to anyone. Also I think hard drives are a special case because drive reviews are rare if non existant nowadays; and you need large amounts of them to do analysis. Which until companies like your came, was probably relegated to big business only; unlike today where cloud storage is mainstream so the average joe may be involved... I think more sectors should have automated statistics like these; consumer struggles to assess the quality of goods; relying on adhoc comments or tiny (paid) reviews...
- netsharc 9y ago
  Maybe IoT can be the answer, although not the kind of security hole of devices talking straight to their cloud, the kind of IoT where devices talk to a central command and control device located inside the home. Then this controller can ping the devices/ask for their status and upload a statistics of how often devices say "Repair required.". And obviously no manufacturer will volunteer to do this...
cm2187 9y ago
The other thing I would be extremely keen to hear from is SSD failure stats. But I don't know who would run a large enough park of SSDs to have meaningful stats.
- Something1234 9y ago
  Maybe digital ocean?
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  AWS, GCP, Azure, etc. have enough drives for sure, but doubt any would be willing to be this transparent.
zkms 9y ago
> What baffles me is why nobody else reports drive failure stats? My wild-ass guess is that organisations with enough hard drives to make reliable estimates give performance/failure data to whoever installed/designed the arrays (who i imagine get some competitive advantage from knowing which drives fail) and so there's probably a pretty serious culture of secrecy around this stuff.
- trevyn 9y ago
  Not a culture of secrecy, they just have good relationships with the vendors, so it's professional courtesy not to publicly compare. Where you do see it is when relations are strained, see for example YouTube bandwidth reports.
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
> What baffles me is why nobody else reports drive failure stats? Amazon, Microsoft and Google probably have too much to lose from calling-out the vendors of poorly performing drives and the ever-present risk of a lawsuit - which is probably the overriding concern: if Contoso Storage Ltd had a single bad batch that coincidentally Azure used for their storage operations, they'd report a on-the-whole inaccurate failure rate, and Contoso's revenue and stock price would dip accordingly. Given the size, scale and marketing of AWS, Azure and Google's Cloud services respectively I don't think them publishing their hardware failure rates would positively affect their cloud services revenues any detectable amount - all for more work to analyse and publish the findings and the subsequent liability.

agumonkey 9y ago

Hello, I have no idea why and am wondering too. Maybe a tradition of closeness, or they didn't think it would matter to anyone. Also I think hard drives are a special case because drive reviews are rare if non existant nowadays; and you need large amounts of them to do analysis. Which until companies like your came, was probably relegated to big business only; unlike today where cloud storage is mainstream so the average joe may be involved... I think more sectors should have automated statistics like these; consumer struggles to assess the quality of goods; relying on adhoc comments or tiny (paid) reviews...

netsharc 9y ago
Maybe IoT can be the answer, although not the kind of security hole of devices talking straight to their cloud, the kind of IoT where devices talk to a central command and control device located inside the home. Then this controller can ping the devices/ask for their status and upload a statistics of how often devices say "Repair required.". And obviously no manufacturer will volunteer to do this...

cm2187 9y ago

The other thing I would be extremely keen to hear from is SSD failure stats. But I don't know who would run a large enough park of SSDs to have meaningful stats.

Something1234 9y ago
Maybe digital ocean?
jsjohnst 9y ago
AWS, GCP, Azure, etc. have enough drives for sure, but doubt any would be willing to be this transparent.

zkms 9y ago

> What baffles me is why nobody else reports drive failure stats? My wild-ass guess is that organisations with enough hard drives to make reliable estimates give performance/failure data to whoever installed/designed the arrays (who i imagine get some competitive advantage from knowing which drives fail) and so there's probably a pretty serious culture of secrecy around this stuff.

trevyn 9y ago
Not a culture of secrecy, they just have good relationships with the vendors, so it's professional courtesy not to publicly compare. Where you do see it is when relations are strained, see for example YouTube bandwidth reports.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

> What baffles me is why nobody else reports drive failure stats? Amazon, Microsoft and Google probably have too much to lose from calling-out the vendors of poorly performing drives and the ever-present risk of a lawsuit - which is probably the overriding concern: if Contoso Storage Ltd had a single bad batch that coincidentally Azure used for their storage operations, they'd report a on-the-whole inaccurate failure rate, and Contoso's revenue and stock price would dip accordingly. Given the size, scale and marketing of AWS, Azure and Google's Cloud services respectively I don't think them publishing their hardware failure rates would positively affect their cloud services revenues any detectable amount - all for more work to analyse and publish the findings and the subsequent liability.