Seagate ST500LM012 HN 500 GB failure rate and reliability

F Grade F: Poor

Backblaze logged 648 drive-years on the Seagate ST500LM012 HN from Q1 2023 to Q3 2026, with 50 in service at the end of that period. In that time 35 drives failed, an annualised failure rate of 5.40%.

That is 256% higher than the 1.52% average across every drive in the same data, which earns it grade F (poor).

Among the 5 graded 500 GB hard drives it ranks 3 of 5 for reliability.

Failures have fallen: 0.00% over the latest 8 quarters against 6.85% before.

Failure rate / year: 5.40%
Average, all drives: 1.52%
Drives in use: 50
Drive-years: 648
Failures: 35
Capacity: 500 GB
Type: HDD
Model number: ST500LM012 HN

Failure rate by quarter

Quarter	Drive-days	Failures	Failure rate / year
Q1 2023	35,168	5	5.19%
Q2 2023	34,478	8	8.47%
Q3 2023	34,232	10	10.66%
Q4 2023	30,187	3	3.63%
Q1 2024	22,620	5	8.07%
Q2 2024	15,991	3	6.85%
Q3 2024	13,779	1	2.65%
Q4 2024	8,992	0	0.00%
Q1 2025	7,159	0	0.00%
Q2 2025	6,667	0	0.00%
Q3 2025	6,427	0	0.00%
Q4 2025	6,175	0	0.00%
Q1 2026	5,010	0	0.00%
Q2 2026	4,838	0	0.00%
Q3 2026	4,664	0	0.00%

Single quarters with few drive-days swing widely; the overall figure above is the dependable one.

All 500 GB hard drives compared

Grade	Model	Type	Size	Failure rate / year	Drives in use	Drive-years	Failures
D	Western Digital WD5000LPVX	HDD	500 GB	3.37%	37	326	11
F	Seagate ST500LM030	HDD	500 GB	5.05%	144	673	34
F	Seagate ST500LM012 HN	HDD	500 GB	5.40%	50	648	35
F	Toshiba MQ01ABF050	HDD	500 GB	10.58%	98	605	64
F	Toshiba MQ01ABF050M	HDD	500 GB	11.53%	86	590	68
–	Western Digital WD5000LPCX	HDD	500 GB	1.12%	33	179	2
–	Seagate ST500LM021	HDD	500 GB	1.93%	21	104	2
–	Western Digital WD5000BPKT	HDD	500 GB	0.00%	7	28	0