Solid state drives fail 2.05% of the time, according to data mined from a French retailer’s database. French site Hardware.fr mined the unspecified retailer’s internal sales and repairs database (Google translation) for failure rates on a variety of PC components (logic boards, video cards, RAM, etc.), and the results of that effort show SSDs failed 2.05% of the time, a number roughly comparable to that of traditional hard drives, which had a failure rate of 1.94%.
The information isn’t Mac specific, and we don’t know if Macs were even part of what this retailer sells, but there isn’t a lot of data available yet on the reliability of this new storage format. In addition, there are any number of factors that could have skewed the data or caused spikes for any given drive. This information was simply mined from a database by a hardware site looking to report on failure rates and reliability of PC components.
Nonetheless, while SSDs are faster and the lack of moving parts suggests they should be more reliable, the failure rates were on par with hard drives as a whole. The data in the table below, however, represents 1TB and 2TB drives broken down by manufacturer and model. At those capacities, SSDs compare more favorably.
This is a muddy comparison in a number of ways. For one thing, the SSD data isn’t broken down by capacity. For another, the highest SSDs on the market are roughly half a terabyte (or less), and cost upwards of US$1,500. One can routinely find 1TB hard drives for under $100.
Still, those interested in reliability may find these numbers helpful, or at least interesting. Note, in particular, Intel’s SSD failure rate, which is more than three times better than the other companies.
| 1TB Hard Drives | Failure Rate | 2TB Hard Drives | Failure Rate | Sold State Drives | Failure Rate |
| Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Samsung SpinPoint F1 Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 WD Caviar Green WD10EARS Seagate Barracuda LP Samsung SpinPoint F3 WD Caviar Green WD10EADS WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS Maxtor DiamondMax 23
| 5.76% 5.20% 3.68% 3.37% 2.51% 2.37% 2.10% 1.57% 1.55% 1.35% 1.24% | WD Caviar Black WD2001FASS Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 WD Caviar Green WD20EARS Seagate Barracuda LP Samsung EcoGreen F3 WD Caviar Green WD20EADS | 9.71% 6.87% 4.83% 4.35% 4.17% 2.90% | Intel Corsair Crucial Kingston OCZ | 0.59% 2.17% 2.25% 2.39% 2.93% |
Data Source: Hardware.fr