SMR and zoned storage offer compete and total utter crap performance in the real world Yes, that's because we're in the drive-managed transition phase of zoned

SMR and zoned storage offer compete and total utter crap performance in the real world Yes, that's because we're in the drive-managed transition phase of zoned storage (not clear when -if ever- we'll leave that phase). The first zoned disks needed to present themselves as a dumb unit to the OS, because none of the operating systems had any support for it. Now that at least some OS'es have native support for zoned storage, we might finally see host-managed zoned storage on the market, but as you say -- the technology has not delivered on the projected storage benefits, so the value-add of CMR disks is very much an open question. And there's also the consumer confusion angle: how to market a device that can physically connect to their computer, but might logically not work at all? So I'd suspect to see the first host-managed drives in enterprise datacenters (think Amazon Glacier) -- but FAFAIK they're nowhere to be found.