Study of 443,000 HDDs over 13 years: drives now last 5-10 years

Researchers analyzed Backblaze data on 443,000 hard drives used from 2013 through mid-2025. Average HDD lifespan now appears to be 5-10 years instead of the older 3-5, and reliability varies widely by brand: Toshiba's failure rate was 107% of Seagate's, HGST's 39.5%, and WD's 51.4%.

• Sample: 443,000 Seagate, WD, Toshiba and HGST drives from 2013 to 2025
• A 1 °C temperature rise increases failure rate by 2.1%
• Each extra 1 TB of capacity lowers failure rate by 3.4%
• Drives surviving the first 90 days rarely fail from manufacturing defects