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Monopolies: Seagate and WD started to secretly use SMR for desktop drives
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

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    Seagate HDDs with SMR secret usage that is not indicated in docs or markeitng materials

    • Barracuda ST2000DM008
    • Barracuda ST4000DM004
    • Barracuda ST8000DM004
    • Desktop ST5000DM000

    WD HDDs with same "feature"

    • All latest WD Reds WDx0EFAX

    SMR drives are very slow during recording, especially on full drive (up to 5 times slower, IOPS up to 10x worse).

    It is very tempring to use such tech for companies as they can use lower quality platters or same platters but increase HDD capacity.
    Using SMR (it adds 15-20% to drive capacity) adds around $0.2-0.5 to drive cost. Companies sell you SMR drive for exactly same cost, so all this avings go 100% to their profits.

  • 18 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Toshiba actually do the same

    Toshiba had been forced to admit that also secretely moved many models to SMR.

    Tohiba 3.5" HDDs

    • P300 4Tb (HDWD240UZSVA)
    • P3006 6Tb (HDWD260UZSVA)

    Toshiba 2.5: HDDs

    • All 2,5 MQ04 family HDDs including
      • L200 lineup
      • 2TB 9.8mm drives (all in this family)
      • 1TB 7mm drives (all int hsi family)
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Wd seems to lost all manners

    WD Red HDDs have for many years reliably powered home and small business NAS systems around the world and have been consistently validated by major NAS manufacturers. Having built this reputation, we understand that, at times, our drives may be used in system workloads far exceeding their intended uses. Additionally, some of you have recently shared that in certain, more data intensive, continuous read/write use cases, the WD Red HDD-powered NAS systems are not performing as you would expect.

    If you are encountering performance that is not what you expected, please consider our products designed for intensive workloads. These may include our WD Red Pro or WD Gold drives, or perhaps an Ultrastar drive. Our customer care team is ready to help and can also determine which product might be best for you.

    Also they published yesterday table of SMR/CMR drives

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    Note that SMR is bad for video editing, especially if you are trasferring large amounf of files and fo do constantly (with deletion of old ones).

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  • ReadbookReadbook

    gonna buy several extra drives for my home zfs storage. Soon it would be difficult to find good one(CRM)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Western Digital reportedly is raising its prices for enterprise-use HDDs to reflect increased costs from production and logistics with mainstream products expected to see more than 10% increases, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

    Really? May be this guys just need more money for their nice life?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Toshiba uses SMR technology – previously undocumented – in several desktop drives and in some video surveillance HDDs: P300 6TB, P300 4TB, DT02 6TB, DT02 4TB, DT02-V 6TB and DT02-V 4TB.

    Certain notebook PC, game consoles, and external consumer drives also use SMR: L200 2TB, L200 1TB, MQ04 2TB and MQ04 1TB.

    Official response.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    List of known SMR drives

    • WD - 3.5"
      • WD20EFAX 2TB WD Red DM-SMR (1), EFRX is CMR
      • WD30EFAX 3TB WD Red DM-SMR (12) and inferred from (13), EFRX is CMR
      • WD40EFAX 4TB WD Red DM-SMR (1), EFRX is CMR
      • WD60EFAX 6TB WD Red DM-SMR (1), EFRX is CMR
      • WD20EZAZ 2TB Blue DM-SMR Inferred from (4), EZRZ is CMR
      • WD30EZAZ 3TB Blue DM-SMR ?, EZRZ is CMR
      • WD40EZAZ 4TB Blue DM-SMR ?, EZRZ is CMR
      • WD60EZAZ 6TB Blue DM-SMR Inferred from (4), EZRZ is CMR
      • WD40EMAZ 4TB Elements DM-SMR (12)
      • WD60EMAZ 6TB Elements DM-SMR (12)
      • WD60EDAZ 6TB My Book DM-SMR (14)
    • Seagate - 3.5"
      • ST2000DM005 2TB Barracuda DM-SMR Inferred from (8)
      • ST2000DM008 2TB Barracuda DM-SMR (2)
      • ST3000DM007 3TB Barracuda DM-SMR Inferred from (8)
      • ST4000DM004 4TB Barracuda DM-SMR (2)
      • ST5000DM003 5TB Barracuda DM-SMR 2TB platter as per (15)
      • ST6000DM003 6TB Barracuda DM-SMR Inferred from (8)
      • ST8000DM004 8TB Barracuda DM-SMR (2)
      • ST5000DM000 5TB Desktop DM-SMR (2)
      • ST5000AS0011 5TB Archive DM-SMR (3)
      • ST6000AS0002 6TB Archive v2 DM-SMR (3)
      • ST8000AS0002 8TB Archive v2 HA-SMR (3) and (10)
      • ST8000AS0003 8TB Exos (Archive v3) DM-SMR (2)
    • Toshiba - 3.5"
      • HDWD240UZSVA 4TB P300 Desktop DM-SMR (11)
      • HDWD260UZSVA 6TB P300 Desktop DM-SMR (11)
      • DT02ABA400 4TB DT02(-V) DM-SMR (11)
      • DT02ABA600 6TB DT02(-V) DM-SMR (11)
    • HGST - 3.5"
      • DC HC600 Series 14TB, 15TB and 20TB Ultrastar HM-SMR (9)
    • Toshiba - 2.5"
      • HDWL110 1TB L200 Slim DM-SMR (11)
      • HDWL120 2TB L200 DM-SMR (11), see also list at (18)
      • MQ04ABF100 1TB MQ04 DM-SMR (11)
      • MQ04ABD200 2TB MQ04 DM-SMR (11)
    • WD - 2.5"
      • WD9000LPZX 900GB Blue DM-SMR (16)
      • WD10SPZX 1TB Blue DM-SMR (5), also as HGST Travelstar, see (20)
      • WD10SPWX 1TB Blue DM-SMR (16)
      • WD20SPZX 2TB Blue DM-SMR (6)
    • Seagate - 2.5"
      • ST1000LM048 1TB Barracuda DM-SMR (7), see also list at (19)
      • ST2000LM015 2TB Barracuda DM-SMR (7), see also list at (19)
      • ST3000LM024 3TB Barracuda DM-SMR (7), see also list at (19)
      • ST4000LM024 4TB Barracuda DM-SMR (7), see also list at (19)
      • ST5000LM000 5TB Barracuda DM-SMR (7), see also list at (19)

    From https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/list-of-known-smr-drives.141/

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Hattis Law has filed a lawsuit against Western Digital Corporation alleging that Western Digital secretly switched many of its hard drives, including its WD Red NAS hard drives, to inferior shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology, deceiving and harming consumers.

    Join in at - https://www.hattislaw.com/cases/investigations/western-digital-lawsuit-for-shipping-slower-smr-hard-drives-including-wd-red-nas/

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • kristofermankristoferman

    I used to like WD but it seems they aren't what they used to be. What manufacturer would you recommend for HDDs in 2020? My workstation drives are nearly 5 years old now and I've been wanting to replace them.

  • PsycoPsyco

    I think all manufacturers are the same (a**holes) - so you have to look for a specific drive.

    I can recommend: WD HC510 10TB - low noise, high speed (still close to 200MB/s sustained write at 95% full capacity) and not expensive as "WD recertified" für arround 200 EUR. Similar to WD He10 8/10 TB (see HDD deals).

    So, having a blacklist/whitelist of HDDs is the only way to protect you from been screwed (see Vitaliys list above).

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    As far as I understand HGST is quite good.

  • PsycoPsyco

    Isn't HGST part of Wester Digital? I see He10 and HC510 drives under WD and HGST.

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    WD now use this to sell you older drives under Red Plus name

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  • satdreamsatdream

    It is very "easy" to identify WD SMR HDD, assuming the cache size of a disk below 8TB is of 64MB (128MB for Seagate).

    Btw, any disk with cache of 256MB (required by SMR techno) of a HDD up to 6TB is a SMR one ...

    To identify cache size, the use of WD HDD decryptor is usefull ...

    In summary: any HDD with model ID WDxxxxAx up to 6TB is a SMR ... eg. WD60EDAZ, WD30EFAX etc. the "A" is: 5400rpm 256MB cache ...

    Not relevant for HDD from 8TB as requesting 256 MB cache on CMR ...

    WD decryptor joined ... [Update: WD reassign the F speed/cache code]

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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    R.LAB video on SMR disks (can use google autotranslated subtitles)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Can use R Tester to detect if disk is using SMR

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    https://rlab.ru/tools/rtester.html

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