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  • Don't get Shingled by SMR

    From David Lesher@21:1/5 to All on Wed Apr 22 22:55:29 2020
    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 [email protected]
    & 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

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Yousuf Khan@21:1/5 to David Lesher on Thu Apr 23 22:49:23 2020
    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

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 23 20:16:45 2020
    Hmmm, we had 4 TB CMR drives for a while until Helium arrived.
    Why on earth are they making a 2 TB shingled drive? Fuck you WD, I am not paying
    for Iron Wolf to avoid shingles.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Yousuf Khan@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Apr 24 05:04:00 2020
    On 4/23/2020 11:16 PM, [email protected] 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? Fuck 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

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Yousuf Khan on Fri Apr 24 02:32:55 2020
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Lesher@21:1/5 to Yousuf Khan on Fri Apr 24 22:46:28 2020
    Yousuf Khan <[email protected]> writes:

    On 4/23/2020 11:16 PM, [email protected] 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? Fuck 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 [email protected]
    & 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

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)