Backblaze provides a failure report for SSDs used in corporate data centers. The results may be a little disappointing

Backblaze is an American cloud storage company. Every year, the company publishes reports on the failure rate of the storage media used. This includes both traditional hard drives and SSD drives. Hard drives may appear to be less durable than their faster counterparts, but the difference is not huge, and the results may have been affected by a number of important factors.

Backblaze has published its SSD media failure rates. The drives were slightly better than traditional hard drives.

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SSD media is used by Backblaze mainly to power storage servers. As shown a reportAt the end of 2022, the company used a total of 2,906 devices of this type. Of the 13 models in use, most are variants intended for the consumer market. The list includes their exact roster, number, average age, and annual failure rate. SSDs were slightly better than hard drives. The AFR was less than 1%, while in the case of hard drives it was 1.37%. In theory, the Western Digital Blue 250 GB SSD (WDS250G2B0A) performed the worst with an AFR of 1.95%. In practice, however, only one copy out of 89 failed. Some models suffered no defects, but the Dell BOSS VD deserves special mention, given the large number of media of this type used and its long service life. However, this is a solution intended for typical server applications. It should also be noted the complete lack of Samsung players, which usually have very good durability.

2022 SSD failure rate details

Conventional HDD failure rates for 2022

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Published data should be treated with caution for several reasons. First of all, the number of SSD drives inside the individual models is uneven, so there can be no question of getting completely reliable results. In addition, some SSDs are used much longer than others, so this naturally increases the risk of failure. There is also a very large variance in the ability of individual models, which can also affect the data obtained. When compared to the results obtained by a hard drive, one must also remember that they are used for other purposes. While hard drives are typically used to store customer data, the main use of SSDs is for booting up servers. So it can be assumed that conventional hard drives are subject to much greater loads, and therefore are more susceptible to all kinds of failures. Data sampling is also very important. In the case of hard disks, it is incomparably larger.

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The report should not be treated as an absolute determinant of media failure rate. It is more than just a diagram which may give some outline of the problem. However, if the data obtained adequately reflects reality, it means that SSDs have slightly better durability than conventional hard drives. In practice, the opposite may be true, if we take into account all the factors that can affect the final result. However, this should not discourage you from purchasing them. They are much faster and more resistant to typical mechanical damage. It can also be assumed that as technology continues to develop, its prices will become more and more affordable, until hard disk drives are completely replaced from the market.

Source: Backblaze