Storage Solutions Hitachi makes most reliable Drives : Storelab, a Russian data recovery firm

[piyush7243]

Nice Article..
Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia : Practical Relevance

 

[apextwin146]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

To Sum it up

"Many customers also get lulled into a false sense of security by warranty periods. A five-year warranty does not guarantee five years without hard drive failure, it just means you get a new drive should it actually fail. Statistical surveys of hard drive reliability are as rare as independent, long-term tests, but we found at least some insight through this analysis that we're discussing today.

warranty!= Reliability. We need more reliable drives than longer periods of warranty.

Seagate

Seagate's results stem mainly from the 500 GB to 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11-series. These products comprise over 65% of all failed Seagate drives received by Storelab. Most drives failed within the first one and a half years, and thus were still covered by the warranty. In comparison, the older Seagate 7200.10-series is much sturdier and only accounted for 35% of failed Seagate drives.

WD

Due to their construction and additional platters, these larger models are less durable, exhibiting an average lifespan of only 1.5 years. Storelab notes that read/write head failure is somewhat characteristic for WD drives. Failures primarily occur as a result of physical impact or overheating (WD heads can be sensitive at temperatures above 45°C).

Conclusions

Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives

 

[piyush7243]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

Yep. I totally agree but the A.S.S is a major problem here.

Thanks a lot for at least posting a reply. As there are 93 views and just one reply..

 

[Gannu]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

Conclusions

Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives

But don't take that as a blanket to cover the whole storage market. It's only the case in this study, which we've already said several times is extremely limited.

This is a better conclusion IMO -

Using anti-vibration parts (like rubber grommets) when mounting the hard drive, monitoring its temperatures, using adequate cooling, and handling it carefully can make a big difference in reliability and durability.

 

[ronnie_gogs]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

^^Or Make a 5 x 1 Tb Raid 5 ( Effective 4 Tb storage with tolerance of 1 HDD )Config and keep monitoring HDD health ... and replace HDD if one fails....

Rest backup in BR when Blu Ray writers become cheap....

 

[Gannu]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

Or just have another backup of the same drive(s). I learnt it the hard way a week back. ):

 

[Aces170]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

^^ The more the reason to choose the slower drives, especially if not used as a primary drive. WD 640 AAKS had a very high failure rate etc..

Its a good article, another reason to have active cooling for HDD's.

 

[apextwin146]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

This is a better conclusion IMO -

Saar that was the Conclusion/Finding of the study conducted . I knew most of the people wont read the entire article hence i just summarised it there.
What really Irks me is the Entire Warranty Propoganda that these Hard Disk Drives have pushed onto us.
The concept of Warranty is totally not acceptable in case of HDDs i feel. HDD should be sold with Guarantee that if opertated under appropiate circumstances these drive would function properly for XYZ years. Warranty is increasingly being used by these companies to get out of producing sub standard drives. I want a Guarantee for 2 years rather than stupid warranty for 5 years. Heck nowadays even the warranty has been reduced to 2-3 years.
I wonder what kind of drives are used in Datawarehouses of Large Companies like Banks and Insurance companies. The effects of HDD failures are more pronounced for these kind of end Users.

 

[6pack]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

about the cooling point of view, wasn't there a google test for hdd failures and their temps which showed that there is no relation between the hdd temps and their failure rate? was a long time back, so lazy me won't search for the link. :ashamed:

 

[blr_p]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

Right, but that google report was referencing older and seemingly more sturdier drives.

..but per this article that WD drives are more prone to high temps.

Storelab notes that read/write head failure is somewhat characteristic for WD drives. Failures primarily occur as a result of physical impact or overheating (WD heads can be sensitive at temperatures above 45°C).

..which is pathetic as the specs state it should work upto 60 degrees C or that used to be the case since a very long time ago.

Nothing mentioned about temperatures for seagate, just that bad firmware rollout sinks seagate in this test where its revealed mostly 7200.11 series drives were reviewed.

So no 7200.11 seagate, no problemo

Western Digital's construction makes drives particularly vulnerable to shocks and pressure. Unlike other manufacturers, WD does not secure the hard drive axle with a separate screw to the drive cover. Because of this, pressure exerted on the housing or cover can shift the axle, resulting in it changing its angle, and then damaging the platters. The axle's attachment to the cover is another reason. If the cover is moved, the engine may be blocked. Except for this vulnerability, though, WD hard drives are mechanically and electronically reliable.

I'm trying to think of instances where one would actually apply pressure to a housing or cover and come up blank :|

Is it normal for ppl to sit on their drives ? where does this 'pressure' come from otherwise.

I learned that modding a HDD to have a see-through cover might not be very smart if it happens to be a WD HDD.

I think the mechanical shocks mentioned here prolly stem from careless use as USB drives. Taking them for walks and not being very gentle when setting them down. Or stacking 100 on top of each other so the 'pressure' builds up.

consider whether you need to be more cautious and modify your installation. Using anti-vibration parts (like rubber grommets)

Again this would appear advisable mostly for USB drives or otherwise mobile ones. I cannot imagine having to do this with a desktop, unless you live in a mobile home.

 

[harishgayatri]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

I am using Hitachi 1TB Never had any problems with this Drive still runs cool at 35°C

Just got Another 1TB for my Uncle due to the good reputation.

They are reliable piece of HDDs .

WD is also good, Currently having 1TB My Book Essential Edition. which is 90% full with Cartoon DVDRips.

 

[piyush7243]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

I'm trying to think of instances where one would actually apply pressure to a housing or cover and come up blank :|

Is it normal for ppl to sit on their drives ? where does this 'pressure' come from otherwise.

I think the pressure they are talking about is atmospheric pressure rather than one sitting on top of it

 

[blr_p]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

We did have a discussion about that here a while back and i think the consensus was do not go above 10k feet.

So when one goes for yatra to Leh or similar, better to leave laptop at home.

 

[Haddock]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

To Sum it up

warranty!= Reliability. We need more reliable drives than longer periods of warranty.

Seagate

WD

Conclusions

Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives

:hap2::clap:
:bleh:

When my desktop was in Chennai, the hitachi 80gb HDD temp was 44-45 deg. C @ idle.

now @ Bangalore, its 38 @load (when defragmenting) hyeah:

the new HItachi 500GB idles at 33 & doesnt go above 36-38.
I'm waiting for SSD's to get more affordable

 

[Emil]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

I think the pressure they are talking about is atmospheric pressure rather than one sitting on top of it

I don't believe that is correct. The paragraph quoted above talks about pressure exerted on the housing. Atmospheric pressure cannot exert pressure on the housing because the housing is not sealed airtight. More likely they are referring to flexural pressure applied during handling or in poor mounting.

After having burnt fingers first with Seagate and now WD many ppl are thinking Hitachi because of fewer reported failure issues. One word of caution. There is a far bigger base of Seagate and WD drives out there so reports of failure would be far more frequent than Hitachi.

 

[blr_p]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

More likely they are referring to flexural pressure applied during handling or in poor mounting.

Yeah, seems that ppl are over-tightening the fastening screws in the interests of keeping the HDD stable in the case. That would qualify as pressure on the housing, lateral pressure in this case. Having said that the block the drive is in is pretty thick & solid, so i'm not sure if even this can exert enough pressure to affect the alignment of the drive axis.

Pressure on the cover is still a mystery.

 

[harishgayatri]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

Pressure on the cover is still a mystery.

You should see how the transporters and the shipping crew handle those boxes.

Even in Flights they handle the fragile stuff badly, then imagine the crew handling at the Ship's Port.

 

[Dark Star]

Re: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia

^^ The more the reason to choose the slower drives, especially if not used as a primary drive. WD 640 AAKS had a very high failure rate etc..

Its a good article, another reason to have active cooling for HDD's.

:O :O Now you have really given me a reason to worry :O Have to get something soon to backup *

 

[main_trouble]

Hitachi makes most reliable Drives :Storelab, a Russian data recovery firm

Storelab, a Russian player in data recovery, recently released a long-term study comparing hard drives from a number of different vendors.



Quoting from the page

(click on the image above to visit the page)

Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the more than 200 Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. All failures were due to physical impacts caused by the users. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner here

Looks like we never gave much credit to Hitachi..

 

[CA50]

Re: Hitachi makes most reliable Drives :Storelab, a Russian data recovery firm

Then WD and Segate must be the loser . May be because of that hitachi drives are generally seen in laptops and some branded desktops.