I don't think personal results and Backblaze results are really comparable. I know plenty of people who have have a bad experience with WD drives, and plenty wh

I don't think personal results and Backblaze results are really comparable. I know plenty of people who have have a bad experience with WD drives, and plenty who have had a fantastic experience with Seagate drives. Honestly, all hard drives are pretty solid these days, and I honestly don't think one manufacturer really stands out enough that individuals can really expect a given drive to last longer than another. Statistics just don't work on a sample size that small. You may get lucky, or you may get unlucky, it really just depends on which drive you happen to get. I make my personal HD buying decisions based on: - warranty and customer service - price - noise - performance Both Seagate and WD have about the same warranty, and they both seem to be pretty good with customer service (check recent reviews though, this can change). If you consider them equal in that department, pick based on the other three metrics. I was about to buy some Seagate drives for a NAS, but ended up with WD because they were on sale. I was a little worried about the noise from Seagate, but the price and performance won me over, but I switched at the last minute because the price changed. Now, if you're going to build a data center with a large number of consumer drives, absolutely use Backblaze's results. If your just going to but a few, recognise that all drives the test are reasonably reliable, so whether your drive dies early is mostly luck (assuming you treat them nicely).