Toshiba MQ01ABF050 500 GB failure rate and reliability

F Grade F: Poor

Backblaze logged 605 drive-years on the Toshiba MQ01ABF050 from Q1 2023 to Q3 2026, with 98 in service at the end of that period. In that time 64 drives failed, an annualised failure rate of 10.58%.

That is 596% 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 4 of 5 for reliability.

Failures have fallen: 3.14% over the latest 8 quarters against 15.97% before.

Failure rate / year: 10.58%
Average, all drives: 1.52%
Drives in use: 98
Drive-years: 605
Failures: 64
Capacity: 500 GB
Type: HDD
Model number: MQ01ABF050

Failure rate by quarter

Quarter	Drive-days	Failures	Failure rate / year
Q1 2023	21,213	5	8.60%
Q2 2023	20,477	13	23.17%
Q3 2023	19,512	6	11.22%
Q4 2023	18,127	8	16.11%
Q1 2024	17,140	8	17.04%
Q2 2024	16,190	8	18.04%
Q3 2024	15,343	8	19.03%
Q4 2024	14,500	8	20.14%
Q1 2025	13,411	0	0.00%
Q2 2025	12,216	0	0.00%
Q3 2025	12,017	0	0.00%
Q4 2025	11,650	0	0.00%
Q1 2026	10,546	0	0.00%
Q2 2026	9,466	0	0.00%
Q3 2026	9,045	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