Study of 443,156 HDDs Finds HGST Cuts Failure Rate to 41% of Seagate, Toshiba Worst
Updated
Updated · blocksandfiles.com · Aug 7
Study of 443,156 HDDs Finds HGST Cuts Failure Rate to 41% of Seagate, Toshiba Worst
3 articles · Updated · blocksandfiles.com · Aug 7
Summary
A peer-reviewed study of 443,156 enterprise HDDs over 1.66 million drive-years found HGST had the lowest controlled failure rate, while Toshiba ranked worst and Seagate was close behind.
Using regression models on Backblaze data from 2013 to Q2 2025, the authors controlled for drive age, capacity, form factor and average temperature to make like-for-like manufacturer comparisons.
HGST drives failed at about 41% of Seagate's rate, WD at about 52%, and Toshiba at about 107%, making Toshiba the highest-failure brand in the adjusted analysis.
The paper argues raw Backblaze comparisons can be biased because manufacturers entered fleets at different times and many drives leave the dataset before failing, creating age skew and right-censoring.
The authors say their full-sample methodology revises recent-quarter snapshots and suggests manufacturer reliability gaps remain large even after adjusting for key drive characteristics.