Backblaze Finds SSDs Are More Reliable Than HDDs

williamyf writes: The fine folks at Backblaze have published their first ever report that includes their SSD fleet. To the surprise of no one, SSDs are more more reliable (0.98% AFR) than HDDs (1.64% AFR). The surprising thing thing was how small the difference is (0.66% AFR). A TL;DR article by well regarded storage reporter Chris Mellor is here. Also worthy of note: S.M.A.R.T. attribute usage among SSD makers is neither standardized, nor very smart: "Klein notes that the SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) used for drive state reporting is applied inconsistently by manufacturers. "Terms like wear leveling, endurance, lifetime used, life used, LBAs [Logical Block Address] written, LBAs read, and so on are used inconsistently between manufacturers, often using different SMART attributes, and sometimes they are not recorded at all." That means you can't use such SMART statistics to make valid comparisons between the drives. "Come on, manufacturers. Standardize your SMART numbers."

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