A Hard Drive Reliability Check on 341,263 Drives, From 4TB to Past 20TB
Help Net Security, Friday, July 17th, 2026
Backblaze's Q1 2026 report on 341,263 drives shows a 1.24% annualized failure rate, with 20TB+ drives performing strongly.
Backblaze analyzed more than 341,000 hard drives spanning 4TB to beyond 20TB in its Q1 2026 report, reporting a quarterly annualized failure rate of 1.24%.
Newer, higher-capacity drives above 20TB performed strongly with just a 0.85% annualized failure rate despite recent deployment.
Three models, including the HGST HUH728080ALE600, recorded zero failures over the period, while some small-population models showed inflated percentages from very few actual failures.
Backblaze tracks drives daily using SMART statistics, though the methodology may undercount day-one failures because drives absent from the prior day's inventory do not register.
The full dataset remains publicly downloadable, reflecting the company's transparency on hardware reliability.