With solid-state drives (SSDs) entering value and mainstream price segments, and the transition in consumers' data-storage behavior from local storage to the cloud, there is expected to be a dramatic fall in shipments of hard disk drives (HDDs) in 2019. Japanese company Nidec, which manufactures nearly 85% of all DC motors for use in HDDs across the industry, estimates a nearly 50 percent drop in HDD shipments for 2019. Since these motors are specifically designed for use in HDDs, it is directly proportional to new HDD shipments, thus presenting a reliable outlook of the HDD industry itself. The DC motor inside HDDs is a non user-replaceable component as detaching it involves opening the seal of the disk chamber, thereby contaminating it.

In 2010, Nidec shipped nearly 650 million motors, which dropped significantly down to 375 million motors in 2018, indicating the sharp decline in the HDD industry. While Nidec will ship as few as 290 million motors in 2019, it estimates shipments of HDDs to go down by nearly 50 percent year-over-year (YoY). Data centers are swallowing up large volumes of high-capacity (>10 TB) HDDs for warm- and cold-storage even as SSDs and DRAM are sought for hot-storage. The client-segment, however, is now firmly captivated with SSDs, with even mainstream laptops packing SSDs. Prominent HDD manufacturers Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba, have each invested heavily in building up SSD product lines, and specializing their HDD portfolio for enterprise and quasi-enterprise (eg: NAS, NVR, high-uptime client) markets.

Toshiba announces MG08 Series, the industry's largest capacity 16 TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD. With 33% more capacity than today's widely adopted 12 TB drives, and 14% more capacity than prior 14 TB models, MG08 16 TB drives are compatible with the widest range of applications and operating systems, and adapted to mixed random and sequential read and write workloads in both cloud and traditional datacenter environments.

The MG08 Series is Toshiba's second-generation helium-sealed HDD family, and eighth-generation Enterprise Capacity HDD family. Toshiba has delivered its industry-leading 16 TB capacity and improved power efficiency by utilizing the 9-disk helium design, introduced last year in 14 TB models, and its own advanced precision laser welding process to ensure the helium remains sealed inside the drive case. The MG08 features 7,200 rpm performance, a 550 TB per year workload rating, a 2.5 million-hour MTTF, a 512 MB cache buffer, and a choice of SATA and SAS interfaces-all in an industry-standard, 3.5-inch form factor.

Today Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. is adding 12 TB and 14 TB models to both its N300 NAS Hard Drive and X300 Performance Hard Drive series. The new 12 TB and 14 TB models use a helium-sealed design, enabling the 3.5-inch mechanical design to deliver increased storage density with a lower hard drive operating power profile. Toshiba laser welding technology and hard drive case is designed to keep the helium securely sealed inside the drive enclosure.

The new 12 TB and 14 TB models operate at 7,200 rpm and come with an ultra-high 256MB data buffer. The N300 NAS and X300 models use Toshiba's advanced Stable Platter Technology to minimize vibrations by stabilizing the motor shaft at both ends for improved tracking accuracy and maximum performance during read and write operations.

Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. today announces a new addition to its popular family of CANVIO external hard drives (HDDs), a 4 TB option in its ADVANCE, BASICS and READY series. The 4 TB option gives up to 33 percent extra storage (compared to 3 TB) for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that want to store large files and back up their data. Using 1TB platter technology allows the 4 TB CANVIO models to maintain the same low-profile design as 3 TB models. All models support Windows and Mac operating systems and are compatible with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.

CANVIO HDDs combine a sleek, slim and stylish design with practical features such as a ramp-load design to prevent internal wear, plug-and-play functionality, backup and security software (available on the ADVANCE models), and a range of more flexible capacity options of 1 TB, 2 TB, and now 4 TB.

Showcasing its continued strength and leadership in enterprise-capacity storage solutions, Western Digital today announced the industry's highest capacity HDD, the 15 TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. The Ultrastar DC HC620 delivers an unprecedented capacity point with a time-to-market advantage for customers who have invested in, and continue to take advantage of the benefits of SMR.

"With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity," said Eyal Bek, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital. "By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers' investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND flash products, today announces two new external hard disk drives (HDD), the ADATA HD680 and the HV320. The HD680 is designed to provide robust protection and comes with up to 2TB of capacity. The HV320 is geared for ultimate portability and style with its slim form factor and beautiful hairline-brushed finish and comes with up to 5TB of capacity.

Not all devices are created equal, and this can be seen with the ToughArmor MB998SK-B which skews the realm of possibilities. It boasts the ability to house an unprecedented 8 x 2.5" SATA drives with 5mm to 7mm height into a single external 5.25" bay, making it the ultimate solution for storage dense applications. Our unique hot-swappable 2.5" EZ Slide Nano trays let you painlessly and quickly swap out drives. Dual 40mm fans keep your drives nice and cool while ventilated openings located on the front and sides maximize airflow. The MB998SK-B features a rugged heavy duty full metal housing which is commercially designed for Medical & Military systems, IPC, enterprise, and industrial settings.

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data storage solutions, today launched the industry's widest range of advanced 14 TB hard drives, enhancing the company's enterprise and specialty drive portfolio. Consisting of IronWolf and IronWolf Pro for network attached storage (NAS) applications, the BarraCuda Pro desktop drive, surveillance-optimized SkyHawk, and Exos X14 for hyperscale data centers, this purpose-built portfolio empowers customers to consume, manage and utilize digital data more effectively and efficiently while establishing new benchmarks in speed and capacity.

With this offering, Seagate continues to lead the industry in driving data storage technology toward a lower cost per terabyte through hard drive optimization, versatility of application, and unmatched capacity. Whether for personal use, creative and design computing, online gaming, or large-scale surveillance systems and hyperscale environments, Seagate drives are opening up new data management opportunities across a wide range of markets.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation, a committed technology leader, today announced its new Enterprise Capacity 14 TB and 12 TB helium-sealed SAS HDD models. The MG07SCA Series features 7,200 rpm performance, a SAS 12Gbit Interface, and Advanced Format Sector Technology. The hard disk drive boasts an industry-leading, 9-disk helium-sealed design and 14 TB of Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) capacity for optimum compatibility. Toshiba's helium-sealed design fits into industry standard 3.5-inch drive bays. A 12 TB model is also included in the Series offering.

The innovative 9-disk helium-sealed design utilizes Toshiba's precision laser welding process, and a special top-cover design seals helium inside the drive offering high capacity and low power profile to the product. The SAS interface provides 12 Gbits transfer rate performance and dual port capability for the data-path redundancy preferred by many storage solutions designers. The 14 TB SAS model offers approximately a 40% increase in maximum capacity over Toshiba's prior MG06 10 TB SAS models.

At the OCP summit this week Seagate and its partners revealed new proof points showing continued progress, solid results, and customer and industry adoption of the company's advanced HAMR and Multi Actuator technologies, which will be implemented in the near future in Seagate Exos enterprise hard drives.

Today Seagate said its new MACH.2 Multi Actuator technology has enabled them to set a new hard drive speed record, demonstrating up to 480MB/s sustained throughput - the fastest ever. Seagate formally introduced its MACH.2 Multi Actuator technology yesterday, which has now been deployed in development units for customer testing prior to productization. Read below to learn more.

Toshiba, a committed technology leader, announces the MN07 Series 12 TB and 14 TB 3.5-inch hard disk drives for use in NAS platforms. The Toshiba MN07 Series utilizes a helium-sealed mechanical design to achieve the massive 14 TB and 12 TB capacity. The 14 TB model improves power efficiency by approximately 55 percent (W/GB) over the previous 10 TB "air" 7,200 rpm mechanical designs.

The MN07 Series is designed for use in NAS appliances with eight or more drive bays and is suitable for NAS file and object storage applications that require disk drives with workload ratings of up to 180 TB per year. The MN07 models feature vibration compensation technology and advanced Format (AF) 512e sector technology. Additionally, both devices offer 24/7 operability, superior reliability with MTTF of 1.0 Million hours, and are compatible with popular 3rd-party, 3.5-inch NAS enclosures.

As of June 30, 2018 we had 100,254 spinning hard drives in Backblaze's data centers. Of that number, there were 1,989 boot drives and 98,265 data drives. This review looks at the quarterly and lifetime statistics for the data drive models in operation in our data centers. We'll also take another look at comparing enterprise and consumer drives, get a first look at our 14 TB Toshiba drives, and introduce you to two new SMART stats. Along the way, we'll share observations and insights on the data presented and we look forward to you doing the same in the comments.
Hard Drive Reliability Statistics for Q2 2018

Of the 98,265 hard drives we were monitoring at the end of Q2 2018, we removed from consideration those drives used for testing purposes and those drive models for which we did not have at least 45 drives. This leaves us with 98,184 hard drives. The table below covers just Q2 2018.

With the advent of solid-state storage in pretty much every device you can think of, demand for mechanical HDDs has gone down, because users prefer fast and compact SSD storage over the mechanical dinosaurs. HDD manufacturers have been trying to stop the inevitable by coming out with new technologies to increase capacity - faster than SSD pricing can drop, but it seems they can't prevent the inevitable.

Now The Register UK reports that Western Digital will close its HDD factory near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is one of the company's first factories, operating since 1973. After the shutdown of the Malaysia plant, WD will be left with only two factories in Thailand, and is now trying to gain more share in the SSD market.

Toshiba today announced that Super Micro Computer, Inc. has successfully qualified the MG07ACA Series 14TB and 12TB HDD SATA models on select Supermicro storage server platforms. Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides power-efficient capacity and storage density, which is now available on Supermicro's popular SuperStorage (SSG) line-up of server platforms. The MG07 Series industry-leading 14TB capacity allows data center customers a choice of storage server platform solutions available through Supermicro's extensive network of distributors as well as systems and solutions integrators.

"As we continue to develop solutions to meet the growing capacity needs of enterprise and cloud data center customers, Toshiba is pleased to be working with Supermicro on solutions utilizing our new MG07ACA Series helium-sealed HDD," said Shuji Takaoka, General Manager of Storage Products Sales & Marketing Division at Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation. "Toshiba's innovative, power-efficient 9-disk design delivers the highest capacity available in the market today using conventional magnetic recording, and matches up well with Supermicro's highly-regarded lineup of server and storage solutions."

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. today announced that Super Micro Computer, Inc. has successfully qualified the MG07ACA Series 14TB and 12TB HDD SATA models on select Supermicro storage server platforms. Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides power-efficient capacity and storage density, which is now available on Supermicro's popular SuperStorage (SSG) line-up of server platforms. The MG07 Series industry-leading 14TB capacity allows data center customers a choice of storage server platform solutions available through Supermicro's extensive network of distributors as well as systems and solutions integrators.

"As we continue to develop solutions to meet the growing capacity needs of enterprise and cloud data center customers, Toshiba is pleased to be working with Supermicro on solutions utilizing our new MG07ACA Series helium-sealed HDD," said Kyle Yamamoto, Vice President of HDD Business Unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. "Toshiba's innovative, power-efficient 9-disk design delivers the highest capacity available in the market today using conventional magnetic recording, and matches up well with Supermicro's highly-regarded lineup of server and storage solutions."

To help enable the surveillance industry's evolution to increasingly higher resolution cameras and new applications requiring real-time edge analytics, Western Digital Corporation has expanded its surveillance portfolio with the introduction of the industry's highest capacity, deep-learning-capable, surveillance-class drive, Western Digital Purple 12TB drive with exclusive AllFrame AI technology. The newest addition to Western Digital's surveillance portfolio creates new possibilities in video surveillance by supporting the capture of multiple high resolution video streams while simultaneously accessing recorded video to support deep learning and analytics. This capability is purpose-built for emerging DVR and NVR systems with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities in that it supports real-time detection of AI-triggered events at the point of capture with continuous background learning.

According to IDC, the amount of big data exabytes generated by surveillance solutions is expected to grow by 25 percent per year through 20211. This growth is driven by the installation of more complex cameras with vastly improved resolutions, increasingly intelligent applications and overall expanding use of video for analytics globally. Traditional video surveillance systems detect moving subjects without providing detailed analysis. New systems enable additional functions such as real-time edge analytics to better detect objects and reduce false triggers. Objects such as animals, leaves, and even light can cause false alarms. AI-enabled systems not only detect the moving targets, but can analyze them to help determine if they are a potential threat.

As a leader in enterprise-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) and the inventor of helium HDD technology, Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that Huawei has qualified its host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) helium-based HDD, the Ultrastar Hs14 - the industry's first 14TB HDD designed for demanding big data applications. An early adopter of Western Digital's SMR HDDs, Huawei is breaking new ground by optimizing its distributed cloud storage OceanStor 9000 system for the sequential nature of data capture in video surveillance applications. Seeing the value in enabling significant TCO improvements, Huawei has made considerable investments in the integration of Western Digital's SMR HelioSeal HDDs, which deliver unsurpassed density, power efficiency and reliability.

Enabling new lower levels of total cost of ownership (TCO) for cloud and enterprise customers, Western Digital Corporation today introduced the Ultrastar DC HC530 hard drive - at 14TB, no other CMR (conventional magnetic recording) hard drive in the industry offers a higher capacity. The breadth and depth of big data is driving the universal need for higher capacities across a broad spectrum of applications and workloads. Built on Western Digital's fifth-generation HelioSeal technology, the Ultrastar DC HC530 drive is designed for public and private cloud environments where storage density, watt/TB and $/TB are critical parameters for creating the most cost-efficient infrastructure.

The data explosion caused by big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, rich content and fast data applications is challenging hyperscale cloud data centers and enterprises to efficiently build massive petabyte-scale infrastructures. This ability to cost-effectively scale-up or scale-out is business critical, not only for cloud service providers but for organizations leveraging big data analytics and machine learning in medical, science, agriculture and other fields seeking innovation, discoveries and unique insights, as well as for creating new business models.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation ("Toshiba") today announced six new series of internal hard drives for the consumer market: P300 Desktop PC Hard Drives, L200 Laptop PC Hard Drives, X300 Performance Hard Drives, and N300 NAS Hard Drives.

The P300 Desktop PC Hard Drive series offers high performance ideal for home and business users and is available with up to 3 TB of storage capacity. They operate at 7,200 rpm and have built-in shock sensors that detect impacts and reduce vibration during read and write operations, improving tracking accuracy and performance.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, announces two new surveillance and video streaming Hard Drives to the consumer internal lineup, the S300 and V300. The S300 surveillance Hard Drive series is available in capacities up to 10 TB and offers support for up to 64 high definition camera streams. The V300 Video Stream Hard Drive series is available in capacities up to 3 TB and suited for all entry level recording and streaming for the home.

The S300 Surveillance Hard Drive series offer 24/7 reliability and high performance with large cache size up to 256 MB. The S300 performs at up to 7200 rpm with a maximum data transfer speed of 248 MB/s. Additionally, the S300 comes with built-in RV sensors to help suppress vibrations in multi hard drive platforms. Available in up to 10 TB capacities, the new surveillance hard drive can handle high workloads up to 180 TB/year and supports surveillance network video recorders (sNVR), surveillance digital video recorders (sDVR), hybrid sDVR (analog and IP) and RAID storage arrays for surveillance.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of highperformance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched the HV300 and HD330 external hard drives.Measuring in at 10.3 mm thick the HV300 is one of ADATA's slimmest large capacity external hard drives to date, and features a sleek and sophisticated design that's sure to impress. The HD330 on the other hand is designed with durability in mind, featuring a robust silicone layer that protects it and the data inside from accidental drops and bumps.

Sporting a profile of just 10.3 mm the HV300 slips easily into the pockets of briefcases and backpacks, and is equally easy to grasp in one hand. What's more, it features an elegant design that'll satisfy even the most discerning users, namely is eye-catching, glossy front cover surrounded by a beautifully textured frame. For an added injection of personality, users can choose from four2colors to match their style: black, red, white and blue.

The HV300 comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB and 5 TB to meet the needs of different users, whether for backing up work files or storing 4K movies, and it transfers that data fast with USB 3.1. It is equipped with ADATA's proprietaryshock sensors, which immediately ceases all drive activity if any impact is detected, thereby minimizing the occurrence of errors and bad sectors. What's more it has HDDtoGO software with AES-256 bit encryption to keep the user's important data safe from prying eyes.

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in data storage solutions, today unveiled its 14TB helium-based ExosTM X14 enterprise drive at the OCP U.S. Summit 2018 in San Jose, Calif. The Seagate Exos X14 delivers high performance and greater capacity for hyperscale data centers looking to efficiently and cost-effectively manage increasing amounts of data.

Enterprises across the globe face the daunting challenge of managing a massive increase in data volume as the world is expected to create 163 zettabytes of data in 2025, according to a study by analyst firm IDC and sponsored by Seagate. As the need for hyperscale and cloud storage rises to unprecedented levels, Seagate's Exos X14 hard drive is a direct response to customer demand for increased enterprise storage capacity and efficiency.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, announces its new MQ04 Series 2TB HDD model MQ04ABD200, designed for use in notebook PCs, all-in-one and slim-line desktop systems, and other applications requiring high capacity storage and 2.5-inch mobile-class durability.

The MQ04ABD200 dual-disk model delivers 2 TB of storage capacity in a compact 2.5-inch, 9.5 mm height form factor. The drive's 6 Gbit/s SATA interface and 5,400 rpm performance, combined with a large 128 MB buffer, result in a 34 percent increase in maximum transfer rates and a 50 percent improvement in power efficiency compared to Toshiba's previous 1 TB mobile-class model generation, MQ01ABD100.

Overview
At the end of 2017 we had 93,240 spinning hard drives. Of that number, there were 1,935 boot drives and 91,305 data drives. This post looks at the hard drive statistics of the data drives we monitor. We'll review the stats for Q4 2017, all of 2017, and the lifetime statistics for all of the drives Backblaze has used in our cloud storage data centers since we started keeping track.

Hard Drive Reliability Statistics for Q4 2017
At the end of Q4 2017 Backblaze was monitoring 91,305 hard drives used to store data. For our evaluation we remove from consideration those drives which were used for testing purposes and those drive models for which we did not have at least 45 drives (read why after the chart). This leaves us with 91,243 hard drives. The table below is for the period of Q4 2017.

Known for enabling new levels of enterprise total cost of ownership (TCO) with HelioSeal helium hard drive technology and industry leading capacity drives, Western Digital Corporation is expanding its portfolio for enterprise customers with a new, mid-range series of 4 terabyte (TB), 6TB and 8TB air-based hard drives. The new products enable corporate data centers having data set sizes smaller than found in hyperscale environments to harness the power of data across a broad spectrum of Big Data applications such as analytics and distributed file systems.

Western Digital leads the high-capacity enterprise hard drive market for hyperscale and cloud environments with its 10TB, 12TB and 14TB drives, where the company's HelioSeal helium-sealing technology is required for the highest capacities and densities to deliver the lowest (or best) TCO. However, many applications have small data sets or benefit from optimal performance from implementation of a cluster of lower capacity, air-based hard drives. Many traditional data center systems still rely on moderate capacity points for RAID-based block-and-file systems.