3 ms·

Yev from Backblaze here -> Yes, we do burn in the drives before deploying them. So the drives in the study are ones that have at least made it past that state.

by atYevP 12y ago

larrys 12y ago
Would be interesting to see a post on what your burn-in procedure is.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Doesn't that negate a lot of the usefulness of the data? If most Hitachis fail in the burn-in but all Seagates pass it then the expected failure of a drive would be wildly different to that suggested by the charts. Do you have the figures for raw losses including at burn-in? I mean, sure, you burn-in and do warranty returns so buying Hitachi would still seem better - but if one needs a drive to just work then it's key to know the overall failure rate.
- brianwski 12y ago
  Brian from Backblaze here. Let's call that "DOA Failure rate", where the drive is either dead on arrival, or does not survive the 2 day initial burn in test. I'll ask the boots on the ground for more data, but my impression is the 2 day burn in doesn't catch many drive failures, let's say less than 1/2 of 1 percent. We have even proposed skipping it, but we gain confidence the REST of the system is wired up correctly and other components like power supplies also have infant mortality.
  - larrys 12y ago
    Very interesting. It might be an idea to do some post mortems on the failed drives. [1] Why not take apart some failed drives and see what you can find out as to why they failed vs. ones that did not. Perhaps info that might be of interest to the manufacturer but in any case would make an good blog post. Or maybe you can cannibalize and use again. [1] I did an "air crash investigation" on a RC Chopper that had crashed. I found out that a servo failed because a part in it was plastic (a gear) (as opposed to, I think, brass). Consequently the jerky move that I made was enough to cause the plastic gear to loose a tooth and then I lost control.

Yev from Backblaze here -> Yes, we do burn in the drives before deploying them. So the drives in the study are ones that have at least made it past that state.

by atYevP 12y ago

Yev from Backblaze here -> Yes, we do burn in the drives before deploying them. So the drives in the study are ones that have at least made it past that state.

larrys 12y ago

Would be interesting to see a post on what your burn-in procedure is.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

Doesn't that negate a lot of the usefulness of the data? If most Hitachis fail in the burn-in but all Seagates pass it then the expected failure of a drive would be wildly different to that suggested by the charts. Do you have the figures for raw losses including at burn-in? I mean, sure, you burn-in and do warranty returns so buying Hitachi would still seem better - but if one needs a drive to just work then it's key to know the overall failure rate.

brianwski 12y ago
Brian from Backblaze here. Let's call that "DOA Failure rate", where the drive is either dead on arrival, or does not survive the 2 day initial burn in test. I'll ask the boots on the ground for more data, but my impression is the 2 day burn in doesn't catch many drive failures, let's say less than 1/2 of 1 percent. We have even proposed skipping it, but we gain confidence the REST of the system is wired up correctly and other components like power supplies also have infant mortality.
- larrys 12y ago
  Very interesting. It might be an idea to do some post mortems on the failed drives. [1] Why not take apart some failed drives and see what you can find out as to why they failed vs. ones that did not. Perhaps info that might be of interest to the manufacturer but in any case would make an good blog post. Or maybe you can cannibalize and use again. [1] I did an "air crash investigation" on a RC Chopper that had crashed. I found out that a servo failed because a part in it was plastic (a gear) (as opposed to, I think, brass). Consequently the jerky move that I made was enough to cause the plastic gear to loose a tooth and then I lost control.