HGST (or Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) are again topping the charts for drive reliability! They must be doing something right.
Also, the fact that backblaze are publishing most of their data online is very cool.
Also, the fact that backblaze are publishing most of their data online is very cool.
Very unfortunately, HGST has apparently scaled back Deskstar sales and development significantly since the acquisition. I guess it has to do with WD selling off some of HGST's 3.5" assets to Toshiba in order to appease competition authorities. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057519
"In May 2012, WD divested to Toshiba assets that enabled Toshiba to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets to address the requirements of regulatory agencies."
[1] http://seekingalpha.com/article/3827746-seagate-western-digi...
Allegedly Cirrus Logic controller had a manufacturing defect and died due to heat. Myself I always suspected that very peculiar and strong smelling rosin flux. PCB was drenched in it, this type of flux is usually highly activated and requires cleaning, otherwise acid will eat solder joints and copper away, especially in humid and hot environments.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/mofcom_says_yes_wd_h...
Of course, the reality is China wanted a piece of WD, and used the merger as leverage to get it. I would expect by 2017, HGST drives are just as shit as WD. Which is unfortunate, because the Japanese designed one hell of a hard drive.
There is probably some good news in the article though, for what it's worth: "At that time John Cyne ran WD. He since retired, with HGST bss Steve Milligan taking on his job." ... "In other news Western Digital has announced a new executive management team, and it looks almost like HGST executed a reverse take-over of Western Digital." ... "A person who was close to the corporate action in Western Digital and HGST said: 'All key positions are with HGST people; it's a reverse buyout. First HGST took Coyne's money to buy themselves (probably with a clause that Milligan is becoming CEO) and then they watched WD dismantling itself.'"
I had one of the IBM Deskstar (aka. Deathstar for the high failure rate). IBM sold the HDD business to Hitachi, who sold it to WD.
And now, Deskstars are as reliable as they come.
I believe these Deskstar types and derivatives are the same essential mechanism and processes as those old quantum drives (probably especially in terms of the QA processes). The heads and the technology have improved to give better capacity of course, but I've been buying and relying on these drives for ~25 years at this point.
I'm not surprised to see them showing up well on these charts.
I have been relying on these drives for 10+ years too and hope Toshiba keeps producing them.
[1] http://seekingalpha.com/article/3827746-seagate-western-digi...
> Quantum [...] were beating IBM and IBM needed more capacity so IBM bought them.
No, Maxtor bought Quantum's HDD business, and Seagate later bought Maxtor [1], [2], [3].
> Western Digital who sold the drive business to Toshiba
No, WDC sold some assets related to desktop (not server) 3.5" (not 2.5") HDDs to Toshiba [4], [5], [6].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxtor#Acquisition_of_the_Quan...
[2] http://www.cnet.com/news/maxtor-buys-rival-quantum-to-become...
[3] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1966943,00.asp
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST#History
[5] http://techreport.com/news/22553/toshiba-becomes-third-playe...