Are There Manufacturer Differences in Hard-Drive Reliability?

Christoph Siemroth and Yeomyung Park

Economics Discussion Papers from University of Essex, Department of Economics

Abstract: Based on the Backblaze hard disk drive (HDD) dataset, we analyze whether the four major HDD manufacturers represented in the dataset—HGST, Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital (WD)—show differences in short- to medium-term HDD failure rates. Using two different duration regression models, we find—holding constant drive age, capacity, form-factor, and drive temperature—that Toshiba's failure rate is slightly above Seagate's. HGST HDD failure rates are the lowest, about 41% of Seagate's. WD HDD failure rates are significantly above HGST's, but still only about 52% of Seagate's. We also document the effects of age, capacity, temperature and drive location on failure rates.

Keywords: hard disk drive failure rates; HDD reliability; manufacturer differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10-24
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