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Comment by java-man | Hacker News Reader

Interesting how HGST has consistently low failure rates [0]. What makes these drives so reliable? Japanese fixation on quality? Specifics of Hitachi design?

[0] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Ch...

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While the WD and Seagate models range from $99 to $109 for 4tb, HGST is $149 on amazon. That might be the reason?

Interesting to note that this wasn't always the case - The Hitachi Deskstar line used to have the nickname "Deathstar" due to their low reliability (this was maybe 15-20 years ago)

The DeathStar name was never used when Hitachi made the drives. Deathstar was used omwhen IBM used to make the drives

Back when the drives were manufactured by IBM?

It's also worth noting that the "Deathstar" fiasco was such a disaster because previously people who cared about reliability had been selecting the IBM drives due to their excellent track record. It took only one generation (or two) of defective drives to completely ruin IBMs reputation.

Years later people noticed that the drives were highly reliable again and the Deathstar problem was a fluke. But now it's too late. All of the HDD manufacturers have been gobbled up by just two companies and all of the interesting competition is on the SSD side.

Isn't HGST just Western Digital now?

Only if Western Digital was dumb enough to kill the golden egg laying goose. If I were they I would try to keep the Hitachi manufacturing just as it was when they bought it. They do seem to still brand them differently than their own drives and charge a hefty premium and market them to data centers rather than individuals. For me they are way too expensive now. So for me the only Japanese option is Toshiba. I have had much better luck with Toshiba than with Seagate and would easily pay 25% or more of a premium to avoid Seagate. It is so sad because I remember when Seagate was a great and very reliable brand so many years ago.

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