Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

A cautionary tale:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarined-into-unexpected-channels/


Buyer beware~that 2TB-6TB "NAS" drive you've been eyeing might be SMR

Hard drives were already bad at random access I/O~but SMR disks are worse.


Storage vendors, including but reportedly not limited to Western
Digital, have quietly begun shipping SMR (Shingled Magnetic
Recording) disks in place of earlier CMR (Conventional Magnetic
Recording) disks.

SMR is a technology that allows vendors to eke out higher
storage densities, netting more TB capacity on the same number
of platters or fewer platters, for the same amount of TB.

Until recently, the technology has only been seen in very large
disks, which were typically clearly marked as "archival". In
addition to higher capacities, SMR is associated with much lower
random I/O performance than CMR disks offer.

....
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

On 4/22/2020 6:55 PM, David Lesher wrote:
A cautionary tale:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarined-into-unexpected-channels/


Buyer beware~that 2TB-6TB "NAS" drive you've been eyeing might be SMR

Hard drives were already bad at random access I/O~but SMR disks are worse.


Storage vendors, including but reportedly not limited to Western
Digital, have quietly begun shipping SMR (Shingled Magnetic
Recording) disks in place of earlier CMR (Conventional Magnetic
Recording) disks.

SMR is a technology that allows vendors to eke out higher
storage densities, netting more TB capacity on the same number
of platters or fewer platters, for the same amount of TB.

Until recently, the technology has only been seen in very large
disks, which were typically clearly marked as "archival". In
addition to higher capacities, SMR is associated with much lower
random I/O performance than CMR disks offer.

Good to know, but I actually use a disk for backup file storage, so I
might actually be interested. Other than access times, are these SMR
drives reliable, or is it too early to tell?

Yousuf Khan

Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

Hmmm, we had 4 TB CMR drives for a while until Helium arrived.
Why on earth are they making a 2 TB shingled drive? **** you WD, I am not paying
for Iron Wolf to avoid shingles.

Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

On 4/23/2020 11:16 PM, wrote:
Hmmm, we had 4 TB CMR drives for a while until Helium arrived.
Why on earth are they making a 2 TB shingled drive? **** you WD, I am not paying
for Iron Wolf to avoid shingles.

Also if you want to avoid shingles, then you'd have to stay away from
Seagate Barracude Compute drives too. They go all of the way down to 1
TB as well.

Yousuf Khan

Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

On Friday, April 24, 2020 at 5:04:04 PM UTC+8, Yousuf Khan wrote:

Also if you want to avoid shingles, then you'd have to stay away from
Seagate Barracude Compute drives too. They go all of the way down to 1
TB as well.

Yousuf Khan

I am pretty sure you can get 1 TB on a single platter, even for 2.5" before
SMR. So then Seagate are just being jerks.

Don't get Shingled by SMR
 

Yousuf Khan writes:

On 4/23/2020 11:16 PM, wrote:
Hmmm, we had 4 TB CMR drives for a while until Helium arrived.
Why on earth are they making a 2 TB shingled drive? **** you WD, I am not paying
for Iron Wolf to avoid shingles.

Also if you want to avoid shingles, then you'd have to stay away from
Seagate Barracude Compute drives too. They go all of the way down to 1
TB as well.

update:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-lists-all-drives-slower-smr-techNOLOGY
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433