Hard Disk Drives physically write code onto the hard disk platter in the drive. But here, I’ll touch on how long each type will last. My colleague wrote an informative blog post detailing the difference between HDDs and SSDs recently that can provide you with extensive information. The two most popular types of hard drives have different life expectancies. Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) vs Solid-State Drives (SSDs) Here’s an infographic rate based on the data from Backblaze’s study: Western Digital and Hitachi hard drives lasted much longer than Seagate’s in Backblaze’s study. They found that 90% of hard drives survive for three years and 80% for four years. A compelling study that proved this statistic comes from the online backup company Backblaze who analyzed the failure rates of 25,000 running hard drives. Generally speaking, you can rely on your hard drive for three to five years on average. And lastly, as we always say here at Prosoft Engineering, make sure to have an up-to-date backup of your hard drive. Also, hard drives respond to the cleanliness of the environment, so stay alert for electrical issues and dust. If you read/write more data on your disk, your hard drive will age faster. More reputable brands who make dependable hardware will have drives that last longer. The life span of a hard drive depends on many variables, like the brand, size, type, and environment.

To quote from Chuck Palahniuk’s book, Fight Club, “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everything drops to zero.” That is, given enough time every hard drive will eventually fail. Not enough people realize that their hard drive will fail given enough time. How long do hard drives last? This critical question should be asked by every business and individual with valuable data.

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