cats_Paw :
Seagate is the least reliable brand of hard drives followed closely by western digital.
I stay away from those brands.
Samsung hitachi and Toshiba are what I usually look for in hard drives.
Reference please ! .... Is this conclusion based upon forum posts, personal experience or actual data analysis for consumer drives used in a consumer environment ?
And no, not consumer drives in a server environment (irrelevant) where necessary consumer protection features like head parking make such drives unsuitable for server usage. Head parking is what protects a drive from a vibration like a "desk bump" where head can hit and damage the platter. This protection feature is immensely valuable in a consumer / business environment but useless in a server environment.
On the other hand, since drives are rated for 250 - 500k parking cycles, employing consumer protection features in a server environment is a bonehead move as wil the heavy I/O, those cycles will be burned up in a matter of months.
Here's "real data" for RMA'd consumer drives used in a consumer environment. Data is recorded and analyzed for drives RMA'd after between 6 and 12 months after purchase. Specific model numbers w/ < 100 unit sales are excluded as individual model data is considered statistically unreliable due to inadequate sample size.
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/944-6/disques-durs.html
Brand - Failure Rate - % failure then current analysis period ( % failure previous analysis period)
- Seagate 0,60% (contre 0,68%)
- HGST 0,81% (contre 1,16%)
- Western 0,90% (contre 1,09%)
- Toshiba 0,96% (contre 1,34%)
Frankly, the numbers are so close as to make brand choice almost insignificant ... over 12 months, Seagate has a average of 6.40 failures per 1,000 units and WD is 9.95 per 1000 ... either way, pretty good odds; 99+% of the time, you won't be sending anything back. Where i do care about the numbers is in the specific model numbers that fail.... so it's not a matter of brand failure but model no. failure with some models approaching 5%. I'd look to avoid anything over 2% (twice average) thereby balancing performance with reliability ... higher speed drives (7.2 / 10k rpm) drives would be expected to fail more then 5.4k
Top 5 failed drives
- 4,90% Toshiba 3 To DT01ACA300
- 2,86% WD RE 4 To WD4000FYYZ
- 2,33% WD Blue 250 Go WD2500AAKX
- 2,23% WD Black 4 To WD4003FZEX
- 2,20% WD Red 750 Go WD7500BFCX
Also important in drive selection is replacement policies. Our last two drive failures occurred back around 2005 or so ... back when we were using tape drives for backup. One was on our main CAD station (SCSI system). Called in the RMA in the early afternoon, replacement drive was delivered before 10 am next morning. I had to 'secure' the shipment with a credit card, they never charged it cancelling the charge the next day when the RMA'd drive as returned in the same box replacement arrived in. Shipping (2 day) was free but I did pay an "upgrade" cost for the ON delivery .. was about $6 IIRC
The other drive, (WD Black IIRC) had no such option. As they explained ... they sent me a mailing label, I boxed and shipped it, once it arrived it would be examined do "determine eligibility" and, if deemed eligible, I would be sent a replacement. Not willing to have a box down that long, I bought a replacement. The RMA'd drive arrived 12 days later.
This matters much less today as with HD costs so low, keeping a spare or mirrored drive on hand is a "no brainer" if
you can't afford to have a drive down. We keep mirrored drives so if something dies, no downtime. But we also keep spare HDs that are used in a docking station for off-site data storage. Mirrored drives are nice but don't help after a burglary or fire. We cycle our drives out .... after 4-5 years in the box, they are replaced and relegated to off site data storage. I have some HDs that were retired from off-site storage, still working, that I just have nothing to connect them too as long since I had an IDE docking station I could connect them to.
BTW, haven't had a HD failure in about 10 years .... every drive installed (desktops and laptops) in last 5+ years has been an SSHD.
Environment Tips....
1) Keep them cool, in well ventilated cases ...occasionally check surface temps and / or monitor internal temps (~35C).
2) Use sturdy desk furniture; light, flimsy furniture is subject to vibration and "bumps"
3) Use cases that provide for vibration isolation.
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