WD Red HDD naming convention makes SMR choices clearer

[HEXUS]

WD Red drives will use SMR, but WD Red Plus and WD Red Pro SKUs will stick to CMR tech.

Read more.

[LSG501]

So basically they're releasing 'an upgraded' version which I'm sure they'll happily charge more for....

God I hate extra models for absolutely no reason other than making something that should be standard in the sector cost more...

[ByteMyAscii]

That isn't any clearer.
RED has been the NAS product range.
And SMR is not suitable for that.
Keep SMR out of the RED range, full stop.

[DanceswithUnix]

That isn't any clearer.
RED has been the NAS product range.
And SMR is not suitable for that.
Keep SMR out of the RED range, full stop.

Agree they could have done with a new colour for these, but they are not a cold storage drive. If you are only using a cheap consumer NAS where most of these end up, then these drives will be acceptable and better value.

You aren't always writing to SMR, they have a large area of conventional recording which is written to. When you stop writing, it moves data from CMR cache out to a shingled region.
If you are doing large file writes, like video files or machines backups, then shingled recording doesn't hurt so running out of cache isn't a problem.

If, like me, you run a VM farm off your NAS drives then you want to steer well clear. But then if you care that much, perhaps you need Enterprise drives not NAS drives. Those are so expensive, perhaps an SSD would be better.

[simonpreston]

If you are only using a cheap consumer NAS where most of these end up, then these drives will be acceptable and better value.

Isn't ZFS, which many consumer NAS boxes use, not playing nicely with SMR part of the problem, though?

[Tabbykatze]

Isn't ZFS, which many consumer NAS boxes use, not playing nicely with SMR part of the problem, though?

It's the fact it's DMSMR which is Drive Managed. ZFS has the ability to work with Host/Hybrid managed SMR as far as I know so ZFS can work with the technology properly because it can't be worked with like a norm CMR drive.

WD are in the wrong here and with the except of very basic NAS uses, using DMSMR drives in their range of NAS drives is not acceptable.

Even with the higher potential failure rate, I am glad I kept our business in Seagate realms.

[EasterEEL]

Regrettably I purchased early 2020 2x 6TB WD RED NAS with undocumented SMR which I would never had done if they had been marketed as SMR drives. As I intend to use ZFS with my Qnap NAS, should I go back to WD and insist they replace as not fit for purpose as that is what I am inferring from this?

[edmundhonda]

On price: the 4 and 6tb EFAX Reds are pretty much price matched with the Seagate Ironwolfs. If there's a significant price saving they're making, the consumer isn't getting it.

Agree they could have done with a new colour for these, but they are not a cold storage drive. If you are only using a cheap consumer NAS where most of these end up, then these drives will be acceptable and better value.

Until you need to rebuild, at which time the SMR drive takes 10x as long and you're vulnerable to data loss for a whole lot longer, or the rebuild fails because the drive becomes so slow it's assumed bad.

If you are doing large file writes, like video files or machines backups, then shingled recording doesn't hurt so running out of cache isn't a problem.

As long as you don't run out of CMR cache, I guess? How much do you get? How long does it take to empty the cache? What does your controller do when the drive takes too long to respond because you've flooded the cache?

As I intend to use ZFS with my Qnap NAS, should I go back to WD and insist they replace as not fit for purpose as that is what I am inferring from this?

Worth a try! They've not really admitted fault at any time so you're probably out of luck though.

[Spreadie]

All my Reds are CMR, but I won't be buying WD again - Red already carries a premium, and I'll be damned if I'm paying even more for what should be standard. I'm sure I won't be the only one.

[[GSV]Trig]

Red's have always been NAS drives, that means SMR is just not good for Reds.

Someone at WD made the conscious decision to make SMR drives Red's and not tell the customer, they are now battling uphill to try and limit the damage they have done.

I for one will not use WD drives again.

[LSG501]

I for one will not use WD drives again.

Sadly these days we've only really got 2 main hard drive manufacturers....Seagate and WD. Yes there's toshiba but lets be honest would you trust their drives?

Personally if I had a choice I'd use hitachi drives (used wd, seagate and hitachi) but even they've been bought out by WD (well the good bits, toshiba has the rest).... it's now literally a case of picking the 'least evil' option lol. Luckily HGST branding is still in use on enterprise drives and everything seems to point as them being hitachi drives (maybe made in toshiba's factory weirdly) in all but name (and no unlabelled smr), so while slightly more expensive I think thats my likely direction.

[DanceswithUnix]

Yes there's toshiba but lets be honest would you trust their drives?

Yes, the few hard drives I have bought in recent years have been Toshiba. They've been fine.

I wonder from the update in this article if WD are planning to price the new Red Plus drives higher than existing Red. Although at this point I suspect most of us are disinterested in what WD do and they have probably hastened the demise of the spinning disk in general.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...r-hard-drives/

[neonplanet40]

I hope the lawsuits that are being brought against them win and force them to pay out for those affected. I have 5 of the impacted drives in my 12 bay NAS. I am not a happy bunny. Needless to say, I will no longer be buying WD. This is a shame as they were always my default for reliability and quality. Little did I know...

[Core2Extreme]

Yes there's toshiba but lets be honest would you trust their drives?

Yes, my two main storage drives are Toshibas, and they've been more reliable than my Western Digitals over the years. One of those drives is 7 years old and still working well. I do have weekly automated backups, but I'm no more worried about my Toshiba drives failing than my WD or Seagate backups.

Even though my WD Red is in a role for which the performance isn't critical, the lack of upfront disclosure on this drives me to buy Seagate or Toshiba in the future. I considered just replacing my 2 TB Toshiba with a 6 TB drive, instead of adding a second smaller one, and could have easily wound up with a Red with inferior performance for that role.

[[GSV]Trig]

Problem I've got is I'm retiring 2 of the drives in my server for age, a WD 2Tb Red and a 4Tb Seagate, going to swap them out for an 8tb or there about drive and drop a 500Gb SSD in there as a temp drive (Stablebit Drivepool's SSD Optimiser for those that care), I need to find a drive that'll fit the bill, the Seagates a run over from my old NAS and all of my other drives are WD, I would, historically gone for an 8Tb Red, only real choice is a Seagate after this kerfuffle..

[Spreadie]

8TB Reds are all CMR, but there's still the premium to consider.

I just received a warranty replacement 8TB Red last week, but I re-jigged my storage setup in it's absence, so this is going in a cupboard as a cold replacement for my other one, which is pretty much a backup of my array now.

Barring a drive failure, I shouldn't need another spinner for a long time but, even then, it's likely to be ironwolf drives or something similar.