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Yes—brand differences showed up in a large analysis of more than 440,000 hard drives. After adjusting for drive age, capacity, form factor and average temperature, HGST had the lowest estimated failure rate in the study, Western Digital (WD) was next, and Toshiba was slightly above Seagate. The results describe patterns in Backblaze’s data-center fleet; they cannot predict when your particular old drive will fail or rank today’s retail models.
What did the study find about HDD brand reliability?
Christoph Siemroth and Yeomyung Park analyzed 442,992 observations from Backblaze drive records through the second quarter of 2025. Their 2026 paper, “Are There Manufacturer Differences in Hard-Drive Reliability?”, compared HGST, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital using duration-regression models. The models controlled for installation year or drive age, capacity, form factor and average operating temperature, and also examined drive location.
With Seagate as the reference, the paper reported these adjusted hazard ratios:
| Manufacturer | Cox model | Weibull model | Interpretation relative to Seagate |
|---|---|---|---|
| HGST | 0.395 | 0.411 | Estimated rate was about 41% of Seagate’s; significantly lower. |
| Western Digital | 0.514 | 0.520 | Estimated rate was about 52% of Seagate’s; significantly lower. |
| Toshiba | 1.070 | 1.073 | Estimated rate was about 107% of Seagate’s; slightly higher. |
| Seagate | Reference | Reference | Comparison baseline. |
The authors found HGST’s estimate significantly lower than WD’s as well. These are relative, adjusted hazard estimates—not percentages of drives that will fail, nor an individual drive’s probability of failure. The paper’s abstract summarizes its central result this way: “The HDDs from HGST have the lowest failure rate; about 41% of the failure rate of Seagate HDDs.”
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Does the brand ranking apply to your old HDD?
It offers context, not a personal prognosis. The study describes operational drives in one data-center fleet, where workload and operating conditions may differ from a home PC, external backup disk or NAS. It does not establish that an old drive from a particular manufacturer is about to fail, or that a younger drive is safe.
The authors characterize their estimates as short- to medium-term: only a small share of sampled drives had been installed for more than ten years. They also did not adjust for comparable workload data across manufacturers, and they do not claim to explain why the estimated brand differences exist.
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Brand averages also conceal variation among models. Backblaze’s Drive Stats team says, “Over the years, we’ve seen that even drive models from the same manufacturer have variable reliability.” In its 2024 report, two 12TB HGST models drove the brand’s higher result; excluding those models would have put HGST’s 2024 annualized failure rate at 0.55%. Backblaze also requires models to meet minimum drive-count and drive-day criteria before including them in annual tables.
HGST is a historical comparison, not a ready-made recommendation for a new purchase. The paper notes that WD acquired HGST in 2012 and that HGST later stopped making its own HDDs. Its historical estimate does not show that an HGST-branded new drive is readily available, or that every WD model has the same reliability.
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How should you read Backblaze’s failure-rate figures?
Backblaze has collected and published drive statistics since 2013. Its methodology describes daily snapshots of operational drives, including drive details and SMART information such as operating hours, temperature and bad sectors. Annualized failure rate (AFR) expresses failures relative to drive-days over a stated period; it is a fleet statistic, not a guarantee for an individual disk.
The latest snapshot shown on Backblaze’s Hard Drive Reliability & Test Data page was for Q2 2026: 354,415 drives, 1,498 failures and 31,553,350 drive-days, with a quarterly AFR of 1.73%. Separately, Backblaze reported a 1.36% annual AFR for 2025, calculated over 115,638,676 drive-days and 4,317 failures.
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Those figures cover different windows and should not be treated as interchangeable. The manufacturer study estimates brand differences after statistical adjustment; a fleet-wide AFR pools models, ages and fleet composition. Backblaze’s 2024 qualifying annual sample, for example, contained 298,954 drives across 27 models and had a 1.57% AFR. Its reported annual AFRs were 1.70% in 2023 and 1.57% in 2024. Different fleet mixes can produce different overall rates without contradicting the study’s adjusted comparison.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What should you do with an old drive?
For an existing HDD, its exact model, age and operating history are more useful than its maker’s name alone. For a replacement, compare the specific model and capacity for your workload rather than selecting by brand reputation. Relevant factors include workload fit, form factor, operating temperature, warranty and price. The study does not identify a winner among currently sold consumer or NAS drives.
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- Protect the data first. Keep another copy of anything valuable on a separate drive or storage system. A low fleet failure rate cannot prevent the loss of the only copy on your disk; Backblaze’s 2024 report warns that an individual drive failure can mean total loss.
- Check the model, not just the logo. Brand-level findings do not erase differences among models from the same manufacturer.
- Use the right evidence for the decision. Fleet statistics are useful for broad comparisons, but they do not tell you the remaining life of your particular drive.
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