Backblaze: High-Capacity Disk Drives Are Looking Good
Blocks & Files, Thursday, July 9th, 2026
Backblaze's latest drive stats show high-capacity 20TB-plus drives delivering strong reliability.
Backblaze's latest quarterly drive-failure statistics analyzed 341,263 disk drives, with an average annualized failure rate (AFR) of 1.39%, up marginally quarter-over-quarter but down year-over-year.
High-capacity drives (20TB and up) performed strongly and made up 92% of quarterly deployments. The Toshiba MG Series 24TB posted the lowest quarterly AFR at 0.42%, while a Seagate 10TB Exos model had the worst at 3.13%.
Fleet-wide lifetime AFR improved to 1.24% from 1.42%. Top lifetime performers included the WD UltraStar DC HC570 22TB (0.38%) and Toshiba 24TB (0.22%), showing newer, higher-capacity models delivering superior reliability versus older generations.