Backblaze Study: HGST Shows Lowest Adjusted Failure Rate Among HDDs
German publication igor'sLAB has published results from a scientific analysis of public statistics from Backblaze. Researchers from the University of Essex and Sungkyunkwan analyzed over 443,000 hard drives operating in Backblaze data centers from 2013 through Q2 2025. Unlike simple failure tables, authors applied complex statistical models accounting for drive age, capacity, temperature, and operational time.
HGST Leads Among Manufacturers
After mathematical correction of the data, it was revealed that the HGST brand demonstrates the lowest failure rate. It stands at approximately 41% of the Seagate indicator, which is taken as the benchmark (100%). Company Western Digital (HGST's owner) showed a result of 52%, while Toshiba reached 107%. In simpler terms, Seagate and Toshiba drives failed about twice as often as comparable HGST and Western Digital models in the selected sample.
It is crucial to understand: this is not a rating for buying a new drive right now. The HGST brand was acquired by Western Digital back in 2012, so all drives in the selection are old models from previous years. On the modern market, new HDDs are produced only by Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital.
Methodology: Why You Can't Just Compare
A simple comparison of Backblaze annual reports would be inaccurate due to different fleet ages. For example, HGST dominated in 2014, while Toshiba was prominent in 2023. Researchers used regression models to normalize data by age and operating conditions.
A key methodological point: 146,943 drives were removed from the dataset without a recorded failure (e.g., during upgrades or relocation). Statistics account for this as "censoring" — we know the drive worked until removal, but not when it failed. This makes conclusions more reliable than simply dividing failures by operational days.
Temperature influence was also confirmed: each additional degree Celsius increases average failure risk by about 2.1%. A difference of 10 degrees sums up to an effect of approximately 23%.
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