Backblaze - disk failure report Q1 2023

In the first quarter of 2023, the company Backblaze, which specializes in backup and storage, among other things, conducted an analysis of the reliability and performance of data storage systems.

During their tests, they had a sizable pool of 241,678 drives, a diverse mix of HDD and SSD media, with different makes, models and capacities. Of this pool, 4,400 were labeled as startup drives, with most of the 3,038 units being SSDs and the remaining 1,362 being HDDs.

HDD failure rates in Q1 2023.

Increase in failure rate: The annual failure rate (AFR) in Q1 2023 rose to 1.54%, up from 1.21% in Q4 2022 and 1.22% in Q1 2022. It is noteworthy that three drives doubled their AFR values in Q1 2023 compared to the previous quarter, which deserves special attention.

Virtually zero failure rate: the table below lists the disk models that failed or suffered a single failure in Q1 2023.

Annualized failure rates in Q1 2023 by disk size and manufacturer

Source: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2023//

The analysis includes all drive sizes used, but both the 6 TB and 10 TB categories consisted of a single model with a limited number of days worked per quarter: 79,651 for the 6 TB drives and 105,443 for the 10 TB drives. The other disk sizes in Backblaze's inventory have at least 2.2 million days in service, adding credibility to their quarterly annual failure rates.

Source: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2023//

The accompanying chart aggregates all drive models from each manufacturer, regardless of their age. In this data set, many of the older models are from Seagate, contributing to the higher overall AFR. For example, Seagate supplies 60% of 4TB drives with an average age of 89 months, and more than 95% of 8TB drives with an average age of more than 70 months. According to hard drive life studies, older drives are more likely to fail.

However, there are some exceptions, such as the 6TB Seagate drives in this data set. Despite an average age of 95.4 months, these drives showed a Q1 2023 AFR of 0.92% and a lifetime AFR of 0.89%

Average drive life cycle by model and size

The following set of statistics takes into account failures of 72 disk drive models, excluding boot drives. To streamline the analysis, the list was limited to models with 50 or more recorded failures. As a result, 30 models are included, sorted by average failure age.

As you might expect, some disk drive models exceed or fall short of the overall average failure age of two and a half years. Smaller models (1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB, etc.) often exceed this average, while larger models (12TB, 14TB, etc.) typically fall below.

The following analysis examines these trends, sorting the average age of failure by disk size.

SUMMARY

The overall lifetime AFR for all drives listed is 1.40%, up slightly from 1.39% in the previous quarter. The rate appears to be stabilizing around 1.40% for all Backblaze drives, although each model has its own unique AFR.

Disk statistics have been collected for a decade and form the basis of these reports. With these statistics, it is possible to detect potential problems early, make informed decisions about drive performance and provide additional assurance in this regard.

Source:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2023//

Related Pages:

1. Backblaze - disk failure report
2. Supermicro SuperStorage Solutions