WD pledges to make SMR/CMR hard disk choices clearer

[HEXUS]

And it is updating web pages, marketing materials with SMR tech info, benchmarks etc.

Read more.

[Tabbykatze]

They should also do a replacement program for the Customers who have made purchases but do not wish to have an SMR drive when they were expecting a CMR drive.

I don't think they should get away with this "subtle" change.

[LSG501]

The WD blue column on that table, arguably the most purchased branding, doesn't exactly clear things up lol....

Also wouldn't mind knowing about their enterprise HGST ultrastar range.. I know it has smr in the branding on the larger (14-20TB) drives but it doesn't say anything on the lower size drives.

[watercooled]

I mean the whole thing is a bit bizarre but a WD Black drive too? Seriously?

[huggi]

I'm surprised that they introduced SMR into their Red range which are meant for NAS use. Last time I checked, SMR drives seriously hindered RAID rebuild times because once their initial burst write from their cache wears off, the write speeds dropped significantly to the tens of megabytes per second range.
I guess it's a good thing my FreeNAS build is using Seagate Ironwolf drives. I mean, they were cheaper than WD Reds at the time but they're more expensive now and it looks like I now know why the Reds have gotten cheaper...

[SHSPVR]

Well being that WD has more balls then Seagate who still lying out there teeth by call it TGMR when it really just SMR which are very bad for steam game library I know I have 8TB Barracuda with error, may my next drive will be an WD

[Iota]

I'm surprised that they introduced SMR into their Red range which are meant for NAS use.

Indeed.

Well being that WD has more balls then Seagate who still lying out there teeth by call it TGMR when it really just SMR which are very bad for steam game library I know I have 8TB Barracuda with error, may my next drive will be an WD

This may interest you then;

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-smr-dont-mix/

[maxp779]

Good for WD. It sucks that it took this controversy to actually make something happen but whatever. Hopefully SSD's price per GB will continue to drop and in a few years spinning rust won't matter anymore.

[[GSV]Trig]

Damage is done for those that know..

[Spreadie]

Also wouldn't mind knowing about their enterprise HGST ultrastar range.. I know it has smr in the branding on the larger (14-20TB) drives but it doesn't say anything on the lower size drives.

Where did you read that? AFAIK they don't use SMR on any drives with capacities of 8TB and above.

[SHSPVR]

error

[SHSPVR]

This may interest you then;

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-smr-dont-mix/

That nice but change the fact that there own pdf is calling it TGMR when it really SMR

[watercooled]

TDMR isn't the same thing as SMR though they may be used together. Do you have any links for us to check out?

[Richh]

I mean the whole thing is a bit bizarre but a WD Black drive too? Seriously?

Quite. This gets on my wick, although it could be worse. I was about to proactively replace a pair of 2.5" WD Black drives that are used in a write-intensive, mission-critical application and are just about to go out of warranty. Now I'm wondering whether 'new' Black drives will be a suitable replacement. I guess the age of stock on shelves comes into it too. Something of a lottery created has been.

[watercooled]

Regarding the manufacturing date lottery - it has similarities to the bait-and-switch some SSD manufacturers have pulled over the years; release a drive that gets decent reviews, then a while later replace it with different/cheaper components resulting in considerably worse performance. It's wholly unacceptable.

In this case, the Black line is marketed as the high performance line, as you would expect from the substantially higher price typically seen on these drives. You really don't expect to be playing a model-number lottery with this line.

A while back you had the standard blue line, the green line which was typically lower-rpm drives, then the 'faster' black drives. The green drives all but disappeared and the blue line became a model number lottery instead, whether you got a 7200rpm or slower drive.

[IAmATeaf]

The real issue is that WD were my go to manufacturer after having consecutive issues with Seagate but now with them owning each other and the drive you think you are getting not being the drive that you paid for it doesn’t leave the consumer in a good place.