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In a large analysis of Backblaze data, HGST had the lowest estimated failure rate and Western Digital (WD) the second-lowest among four hard-drive makers studied. That is a useful comparison of drives in one data-center fleet—not a guarantee that every WD or HGST model will outlast every competing drive. Exact model, age, capacity, workload and operating conditions still matter.
What the 2026 manufacturer comparison found
Economists Siemroth and Park analyzed 442,992 hard-drive observations from Backblaze. After adjusting for installation year and drive age, capacity, form factor and average drive temperature, their models estimated lower failure hazards for HGST and WD than for Seagate. The study reports hazard ratios of 0.395–0.411 for HGST and 0.514–0.520 for WD, with Seagate as the reference. The authors found the difference between HGST and WD statistically significant (p < .001). Read the study.
A hazard ratio is a relative estimate from the study’s model, not an annual failure percentage or a prediction that a particular consumer drive is a set amount less likely to fail. This is adjusted observational evidence, not a randomized test. The study draws on Backblaze’s production fleet, and its authors describe the estimates as short- to medium-term: few sampled drives had been installed for more than 10 years.
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Why the brand ranking is not a universal buying guide
Backblaze operates a large storage cloud, so its results reflect drives used in that production environment and the company’s fleet practices. Backblaze qualifies drives before deployment, monitors them and replaces drives based on risk factors. That makes its data valuable for observing failures at scale, but fleet selection, workload and maintenance can differ from those of a home PC or NAS.
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HGST is also not a separate current maker in the same sense as it once was: the study notes that WD acquired HGST in 2012 and that HGST later stopped making its own hard drives. The historical brand comparison should not be read as a claim that a current WD-branded retail model is equivalent to every HGST model in the data.
Model-level results show why the details matter
Backblaze’s Q2 2026 report covered more than 350,000 production hard drives. Its overall quarterly annualized failure rate (AFR) was 1.73%, up from 1.24% in Q1 2026; lifetime AFR was 1.41%. Those are fleet-wide figures, not the expected failure probability for an individual drive. See Backblaze’s Q2 report release and its model-level analysis.
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The Q2 report set 6.95% as its high-outlier threshold. HGST model HUH721212ALN604, a 12TB drive nearly seven years old, had a quarterly AFR of 7.63%. Two Seagate models also crossed the threshold; their populations were small enough that a modest number of failures raised their rates. That older HGST model does not overturn the adjusted brand-level study, but it shows why a maker-wide ranking cannot tell you how a specific model will perform.
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How to compare drives for your own system
Use reliability data as one input, and compare like with like. Before choosing an internal or NAS drive, check:
- Exact model and capacity: manufacturer names cover multiple generations and designs; a finding for one model does not automatically apply to another.
- Workload suitability: confirm the drive is rated for how you intend to use it, such as desktop use or a multi-drive NAS.
- Age and generation: fleet results span drives of different ages, and failure patterns can vary over a drive’s life.
- Evidence window and sample: note whether a figure is quarterly, annual or lifetime, and whether the model had enough drives and operating time behind it.
- Your operating conditions: temperature, vibration, workload and enclosure can differ from a data center’s conditions.
- Region, warranty and current availability: verify the exact model number and terms for the product actually being sold where you live.
Backblaze applies minimum population and operating-time thresholds to its model-level reporting, so not every model appears in every table. For Q2 2026 reporting, the thresholds were more than 100 drives and 10,000 drive-days for quarterly figures, more than 250 drives and 50,000 drive-days for annual figures, and more than 500 drives and 100,000 drive-days for lifetime figures. Treat a model’s AFR in context: a rate based on a smaller sample can move sharply when only a few drives fail.
What the findings mean for backups
A lower estimated failure rate is not the same as no risk. Keep separate backups of important files, ideally with at least one copy that is not continuously connected to the computer or storage device. RAID can help maintain availability after some drive failures, but it is not a backup: accidental deletion, malware, theft or other failures can affect the whole system.
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