Re:Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2026
by Palomides on Tuesday September 29, 2026 @11:09PM
(#49903927)
the appeal of the backblaze stats is that they provide data, not anecdotes
My worst one was a 8 TB Seagate IronWolf from Amazon. Bought at the same time as an 8 TB WD Red, as I wanted to spread the risk. The WD is still running about six years later, but the IronWolf died in less than 1.5 years. Thankfully Amazon gave me a full refund, so I threw in a shucked 12 TB WD Elements that's now been running for about five years.
Re:Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2026
by kstrauser on Wednesday September 30, 2026 @12:51AM
(#49904474)
6TB Red, you say? That was about the time of their SMR scandal where they labeled junk drives for NAS use.
There’re still a couple of years left on my personal boycott timer before I’ll risk trusting them again. Every manufacturer has a bad batch sometimes, but that was egregious lying to customers.
I also had a 6TB red that failed. It was SMR. The other 6TB reds I had were and are still fine, but they weren’t SMR. I didn’t even know what SMR was but that drive had awful performance til the day it died
> received a refund of the original €198 purchase price from 1.5 years ago. The exact same 6TB drive now costs around €340
Sounds like you got scammed. The refund should be for the same or similar value today, not 60% of that. Basically they made 40% profit off of selling your replacement drive instead of giving it to you.
One failed drive was replaced with the same model, which doesn’t inspire much confidence. The other couldn’t be replaced, so I received a refund of the original €198 purchase price from 1.5 years ago. The exact same 6TB drive now costs around €340, a pretty steep increase. For the second drive I went with Seagate, fingers crossed.