Shingled magnetic recording [SMR] hard drives (split from mSATA thread)

[w0qj]

One final update to this HDD write speed issue; you folks managing fleets of ThinkPad probably know this already:

The newer and slower (!) shingled magnetic recording [SMR] hard drives are so slow that you cannot put these into a RAID configuration!

In fact, the legal lawsuits may now be starting...
Western Digital faces a lawsuit over the specs of some of its hard drives
www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-f ... 601.0.html

...But we do insist that all of our data backup storage is done on PMR hard disks (perpendicular magnetic recording) for longer data archival survival.
...We don't use the newer shingled magnetic recording [SMR] hard drives; these are MUCH slower and subject to write amplification.

[dr_st]

One final update to this HDD write speed issue; you folks managing fleets of ThinkPad probably know this already:

The newer and slower (!) shingled magnetic recording [SMR] hard drives are so slow that you cannot put these into a RAID configuration!

No, I did not know that; this is hardly relevant to laptops, as most laptops, and definitely the one under discussion here will not run drivers in RAID. Thanks for sharing this, it was quite interesting and important to read.

[w0qj]

"Final" update #2, here is the April 2020 article mentioned by Notebookcheck.net :

Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba have been using slower technology in some recent hard drives without telling customers
Article date: 04/18/2020
www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-S ... 822.0.html

Me smells lawsuits galore maybe...

***If there is enough interest, shall we migrate this hard drive SMR fiasco into a separate thread elsewhere (instead of this X220 forum)?

[dr_st]

Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba have been using slower technology in some recent hard drives without telling customers
Article date: 04/18/2020
www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-S ... 822.0.html

Me smells lawsuits galore maybe...

Strictly speaking, they don't have to tell customers anything, as long as they don't publish false benchmark results, or misadvertise the drives as suitable for specific workloads, for which the technology is not suitable. My understanding is that is the case against WD, not the use of SMR per se.

***If there is enough interest, shall we migrate this hard drive SMR fiasco into a separate thread elsewhere (instead of this X220 forum)?

If you insist.

[w0qj]

A big thank you to dr_st for splitting out the relevant parts of the SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) discussion, to make this a new thread!

~Our own focus is to warn other users that hard drives using SMR technology might be incompatible with RAID and/or NAS.

Here is an update: Seems like class action lawsuit may be coming.
www.itproportal.com/news/western-digita ... e-lawsuits
www.hattislaw.com/cases/investigations/ ... wd-red-nas

We're not singling out Western Digital here; if other HDD manufacturers are not careful about their compatibility claims for SMR HDD,
other HDD manufacturers may get into lawsuit troubles too...

[axur-delmeria]

Ars does some tests on the SMR drives: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06 ... t-garbage/

[kfzhu1229]

My friend had one of those black Friday deal Seagate Barracuda 3.5" HDD's and it was giving him extremely inconsistent performances even in games. Is that due to SMR as well? Even replacing that drive with a decade old 250GB WD black 7200RPM 2.5" drive solved the problem and no more inconsistency.

[dr_st]

Ars does some tests on the SMR drives: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06 ... t-garbage/

The conclusion seems to be that there is something specifically about how ZFS works that is completely incompatible with the SMR technology in a way that kills performance (may also kill the drive? I dunno). But other usage patterns, including most NAS configurations, are not hurt as badly.

My friend had one of those black Friday deal Seagate Barracuda 3.5" HDD's and it was giving him extremely inconsistent performances even in games.

It would help to know the exact model of the drive, don't you think?

[olex126]

Hi All!

For those of you following the Western Digital SMR/CMR shootout, WD has "clarified" their position on a new blog post.

Red Plus? Sheesh!

Head on over to Ars for the full details here:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06 ... comments=1

Regards.

Dave