Hard Drive Stats for Q2 2018

[bluedino]

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-q2-2018/

[alanfranz]

I've always had a question about those stats. "Drive days" seems a key figure; but 1000 drive days may mean 100 drive with 10 days each, or 10 drives with 100 days each. This kind of metric implies that the chance of failing is independent of the age of the drive. Is that so? Was that verified? One of the most failing drives around is the Seagate 4TB, which is a quite old model (it exists since 2013, but it's still sold). How is the drive cohort composed? If it's composed by many old drives and many very new drives, it could mean that we're observing a "mean value" with very little significance.

It would be GREAT to have a "long form" CSV with a) drive model b) service start date (or service hours cont) c) failed/not failed during quarter. THAT would help understanding whether drives fail at random or because of old age (and/or what is the correlation between age and failure - there's a threshold effect, or it's linear?)

[gdrift]

Anecdote: this one drive I have with more than 10 years power on:

  Model Family:     Hitachi Travelstar 5K160
  Device Model:     Hitachi HTS541660J9AT00

    9 Power_On_Hours          -O--C-   001   001   000    -    89479
   10 Spin_Retry_Count        PO--C-   100   100   060    -    0
   12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   100   100   000    -    112
  191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      -O-R--   100   100   000    -    0
  192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK   100   100   000    -    47
  193 Load_Cycle_Count        -O--C-   001   001   000    -    18380622

According to spec the "Service life of the drive is approximately 5 years or 20,000 power on hours" and "The product supports a minimum of 600,000 normal load/unloads"

[toomuchtodo]

Andy or Yev: what do you do with the working drives that are pulled to be replaced due to density reasons? Recycled?

[atYevP → toomuchtodo]

Yev from Backblaze here -> Yup, wiped and recycled!

[ballenf → atYevP]

Do you track stats like:

- installer (maybe handling or technique affects longevity)

- rack # (maybe power supply to one is smoother, or there is variation in audio or emf exposure)

- position in rack (top, bottom, middle, edge)

- average use (assuming it varies) per drive

Sorry if these questions are addressed elsewhere.

[whyagaindavid → atYevP]

any news of EU datacenters? Thx

[atYevP → whyagaindavid]

We're working on it! It's a bit tough since we're bootstrapped, but that is definitely a priority. We can't grow too quickly for risk of overreaching, but hopefully we're hoping we can find something soon, though no ETA on when that's coming.

[ksec → atYevP]

I know most of your stories are about Hard Drives, the 4U Stack, its software and DC. But I don't seems to record any stories about being bootstrapped. As compared to lots of other VC backed startup. Are you guys taking investment, if not why not?

Is cash flow or capital a concern for EU DC? If yes, have you consider Crowdsourcing?

[ars → atYevP]

Why not sold?

[_jcwu → ars]

Most likely liability. There is 0% chance of recovering data from shredded drives!

[agumonkey → _jcwu]

do you shred the platter or the entire thing ? you must have tons of neodymium magnets :D

[toomuchtodo → agumonkey]

You shred the entire drive in purpose built shredders.

[agumonkey → toomuchtodo]

aww, poor magnets

[js2]

Is there a reason these blog posts embed the tables as images? Is it to prevent the results from getting indexed or just convenience? Because it also makes it impossible to copy/paste the model numbers when looking up pricing. :(

[rainbowmverse → js2]

They link a zip file with all the tables in one spreadsheet. Here's a copy and paste:

MFG Model Drive Size Drive Count Drive Days Drive Failures Annualized Failure Rate

HGST HMS5C4040ALE640 4TB 4,773 441,707 5 0.41%

HGST HMS5C4040BLE640 4TB 15,051 1,384,015 10 0.26%

HGST HDS5C4040ALE630 4TB 78 7,791 1 4.68%

HGST HUH728080ALE600 8TB 1,044 95,056 3 1.15%

Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB 27,476 2,645,254 134 1.85%

Seagate ST6000DX000 6TB 1,832 168,450 4 0.87%

Seagate ST8000DM002 8TB 9,886 899,939 25 1.01%

Seagate ST8000NM0055 8TB 14,393 1,309,622 24 0.67%

Seagate ST10000NM0086 10TB 1,220 111,020 0 0.00%

Seagate ST12000NM0007 12TB 21,580 1,816,181 57 1.15%

Toshiba MD04ABA400V 4TB 146 13,286 0 0.00%

Toshiba MD04ABA500V 5TB 45 4,095 0 0.00%

WDC WD30EFRX 3TB 180 16,380 0 0.00%

WDC WD40EFRX 4TB 46 4,173 0 0.00%

WDC WD60EFRX 6TB 434 39,722 3 2.76%

		Totals: 	98,184	8,956,691	266	1.08%

[atYevP → js2]

Yev from Backblaze here -> It's for convenience. At the end of the post you can get a .zip with all of the images in tables!