Toshiba MQ01ABF050M 500 GB failure rate and reliability

F Grade F: Poor

Backblaze logged 590 drive-years on the Toshiba MQ01ABF050M from Q1 2023 to Q3 2026, with 86 in service at the end of that period. In that time 68 drives failed, an annualised failure rate of 11.53%.

That is 660% 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 5 of 5 for reliability.

Failures have fallen: 4.98% over the latest 8 quarters against 15.45% before.

Failure rate / year: 11.53%
Average, all drives: 1.52%
Drives in use: 86
Drive-years: 590
Failures: 68
Capacity: 500 GB
Type: HDD
Model number: MQ01ABF050M

Failure rate by quarter

Quarter	Drive-days	Failures	Failure rate / year
Q1 2023	22,511	7	11.35%
Q2 2023	21,241	10	17.18%
Q3 2023	20,393	8	14.32%
Q4 2023	19,282	3	5.68%
Q1 2024	18,443	9	17.81%
Q2 2024	17,016	11	23.60%
Q3 2024	15,741	9	20.87%
Q4 2024	13,843	11	29.00%
Q1 2025	12,288	0	0.00%
Q2 2025	10,254	0	0.00%
Q3 2025	9,647	0	0.00%
Q4 2025	9,274	0	0.00%
Q1 2026	8,650	0	0.00%
Q2 2026	8,459	0	0.00%
Q3 2026	8,136	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