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They were selling NAS drives using shingled magnetic recording(SMR) without providing any hint the drives were SMR. There are a number of NAS setups which SMR

They were selling NAS drives using shingled magnetic recording(SMR) without providing any hint the drives were SMR. There are a number of NAS setups which SMR drives cannot be used in.

andoriyu 6y ago
Also, not showing real rotation speeds and calling what they show "5400 class" which wasn't 5400 at all.
squarefoot 6y ago
From what I know, plain WD Red drives are the only SMR drives produced by WD, and are the newest development; they just switched the names so that the old plain CMR WD Red disks became WD Red Plus. Therefore WD Red Plus and the faster WD Red Pro models should be 100% safe, while plain WD Red ones, especially if bought less than a couple years ago are not. Corrections welcome of course.
- sigjuice 6y ago
  Their rebranding and name switching is not very reassuring to me. I ordered two Red Plus drives (WD101EFAX) last month, but the drives I got are labeled "Red". I remember seeing some fine print (maybe on their website or in the box I got) which said "you might get drives that look like they are Red, but we promise they totally are Red Plus ...". That said, the drives are working fine AFAICT and I honestly don't know enough about hard drives to tell the difference.
  - meragrin_ 6y ago
    The larger ones like the 10TB ones did not have SMR versions so you should not worry about having an SMR drive.
- tremon 6y ago
  That's only after public outcry. When first introduced, WD Red used CMR for some capacities and SMR for other capacities, like Toshiba does as well for e.g. the S300 line [0]. At least they're now documenting the technology they're using [1]. [0] https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/s300-surveillance-hard-drive-2020/#details https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/s300-surveillance-h... [1] https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-hdd#specifications https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-r...
numpad0 6y ago
Not any hint, it was known among 5ch forum dwellers since they came out. Those disks had platter counts, disk capacities and other specs that do not coincide with CMR configurations according to them.

They were selling NAS drives using shingled magnetic recording(SMR) without providing any hint the drives were SMR. There are a number of NAS setups which SMR drives cannot be used in.

andoriyu 6y ago

Also, not showing real rotation speeds and calling what they show "5400 class" which wasn't 5400 at all.

squarefoot 6y ago

From what I know, plain WD Red drives are the only SMR drives produced by WD, and are the newest development; they just switched the names so that the old plain CMR WD Red disks became WD Red Plus. Therefore WD Red Plus and the faster WD Red Pro models should be 100% safe, while plain WD Red ones, especially if bought less than a couple years ago are not. Corrections welcome of course.

sigjuice 6y ago
Their rebranding and name switching is not very reassuring to me. I ordered two Red Plus drives (WD101EFAX) last month, but the drives I got are labeled "Red". I remember seeing some fine print (maybe on their website or in the box I got) which said "you might get drives that look like they are Red, but we promise they totally are Red Plus ...". That said, the drives are working fine AFAICT and I honestly don't know enough about hard drives to tell the difference.
- meragrin_ 6y ago
  The larger ones like the 10TB ones did not have SMR versions so you should not worry about having an SMR drive.
tremon 6y ago
That's only after public outcry. When first introduced, WD Red used CMR for some capacities and SMR for other capacities, like Toshiba does as well for e.g. the S300 line [0]. At least they're now documenting the technology they're using [1]. [0] https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/s300-surveillance-hard-drive-2020/#details https://www.toshiba-storage.com/products/s300-surveillance-h... [1] https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-hdd#specifications https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-r...

numpad0 6y ago

Not any hint, it was known among 5ch forum dwellers since they came out. Those disks had platter counts, disk capacities and other specs that do not coincide with CMR configurations according to them.