3 ms·

Huh, okay I'm facepalming now. I have no excuse. I even used PCPartPicker for this PC build but for some reason it didn't occur to me to search for possible dr

Huh, okay I'm facepalming now. I have no excuse. I even used PCPartPicker for this PC build but for some reason it didn't occur to me to search for possible drives there to see what other stores could have them besides my usual stores (also I avoid Amazon for anything related to computers). Thank you for removing my tunnel vision.

justsomehnguy 3y ago
Be warned - all SATA drives there are SMR.
- Tijdreiziger 3y ago
  For a desktop drive, it shouldn’t matter since you’re probably not going to RAID it, right? (I guess it might be slower for big transfers, but since you’re probably going to keep frequently-accessed files on an SSD, that shouldn’t be a huge problem either)
  - quectophoton 3y ago
    I do have them in a ZFS mirror, actually. And I noticed the performance is abysmal, both read and write. So the warning is a good one. For my use case it's just Yet Another Different Place (tm) to keep another copy of some files, so I can tolerate low performance if it means it's cheaper. Since I'm still learning and don't have enough confidence in my abilities when it comes to storage reliability, I know that it's just a matter of time until I mess up and lose a few drives due to a silly mistake from my part.
    - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
      Hmm, I’ve read that the combination of SMR drives and ZFS is a surefire way to lose data though. Apparently, if you need to rebuild the array due to losing a drive, it will take so long (and stress the remaining drives so much) that the chances of losing another drive in the process are non-negligible, thereby losing the data on the entire array. Therefore, it might be wise to consider CMR drives for your use case. As a general tip, all three manufacturers have specific NAS-class drives, which cost a bit more but are more reliable and usually CMR: - WD has their Red Plus/Pro line (the non-Plus/Pro Reds are SMR, so avoid those) - Seagate has their Ironwolf (Pro) line - Toshiba has their N300 line edit: ah, you just have them in a mirror. In that case, the magnitude of the risk may be less as you only need to copy data once to rebuild. I’m not sure though as I’m not an expert on the topic.
      - quectophoton 3y ago
        I appreciate the advice. Thanks!
        justsomehnguy 3y ago
        Re-checked, by the cache size Toshiba MQ03ABB200, 2TB is a CMR drive. Rule of thumb - drives with 16Mb (or less, but you probably don't want a 8Mb cache drive in 2023, lol) are CMR, drives with >128Mb cache are 99% SMR. And look at my sibling comment
        Tijdreiziger 3y ago
        Related question since we’re on the topic of cache: does it matter how much cache your drive has? I’ve seen drives with various cache sizes for sale, but I’ve never really looked into the difference.
        ciupicri 3y ago
        Seagate Exos X20 hard drives have a cache of 256 MB and they're using Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR).
        justsomehnguy 3y ago
        You are technically correct, best kind of correct. But you missed this: > It certainly seems that way. Earlier this year I was looking for internal 2.5" HDDs with more than 1TB of capacity, and I could only find Seagate drives.
        ciupicri 3y ago
        I didn't miss it, I was under the impression that the discussion steered to all kinds of hard-disks. I don't think you can install into a laptop the previously mentioned WD Red and Seagate IronWolf :-) By the way, I'm shocked that someone would put a SMR HDD into a laptop. Most laptops already had slow disks when CMR was used, but with SMR, I don't even want to think of the results.
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    SMR is ungodly slow as a NTFS Windows boot/system HDD, compared to a regular HDD.
    - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
      Why would you use an HDD as a boot drive in this day and age anyway? SSDs are cheap (around €10 for the cheapest 128GB drives where I live [1]). [1] https://tweakers.net/solid-state-drives/vergelijken/#filter:PcvBCsIwEATQf9nzCts0TZp8gOA5R_FQklUjoQlJFVH8d6uIt-HNzBP47tM1cHDnXBrYfU9SoJbUY0dqkGhIqjUK06HpRxRy1N9GoSZlDghxvnFdPnfHif0S8wz2OKXGCLkGrtvIKYCFUuOlwQ9drstqU_N_Kex3627TIZTpxC4-GOxArzc https://tweakers.net/solid-state-drives/vergelijken/#filter:...
      - fuzzfactor 3y ago
        >Why would you use an HDD as a boot drive in this day and age anyway? I didn't purchase it but thought it would have similar boot times to a regular HDD, which is only a few seconds more of a delay than a SATA SSD. Nope this was one of the 8TB WD SMR's and takes about 10 times as long to boot compared to regular HDD. Still that's only a few minutes total and it's easy to just boot a few minutes earlier before I want to use that particular PC. Once Windows is initially loaded into memory (against upstream return data being slowly written to the SMR) it mostly works like normal after that. Plus when you've got terabytes there's plenty of room for a number of 64GB partitions to install various bootable OS's in, without hardly compromising the major amount of free space you have left over for bulk storage in the large partition(s).

justsomehnguy 3y ago

Be warned - all SATA drives there are SMR.

Tijdreiziger 3y ago
For a desktop drive, it shouldn’t matter since you’re probably not going to RAID it, right? (I guess it might be slower for big transfers, but since you’re probably going to keep frequently-accessed files on an SSD, that shouldn’t be a huge problem either)
- quectophoton 3y ago
  I do have them in a ZFS mirror, actually. And I noticed the performance is abysmal, both read and write. So the warning is a good one. For my use case it's just Yet Another Different Place (tm) to keep another copy of some files, so I can tolerate low performance if it means it's cheaper. Since I'm still learning and don't have enough confidence in my abilities when it comes to storage reliability, I know that it's just a matter of time until I mess up and lose a few drives due to a silly mistake from my part.
  - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
    Hmm, I’ve read that the combination of SMR drives and ZFS is a surefire way to lose data though. Apparently, if you need to rebuild the array due to losing a drive, it will take so long (and stress the remaining drives so much) that the chances of losing another drive in the process are non-negligible, thereby losing the data on the entire array. Therefore, it might be wise to consider CMR drives for your use case. As a general tip, all three manufacturers have specific NAS-class drives, which cost a bit more but are more reliable and usually CMR: - WD has their Red Plus/Pro line (the non-Plus/Pro Reds are SMR, so avoid those) - Seagate has their Ironwolf (Pro) line - Toshiba has their N300 line edit: ah, you just have them in a mirror. In that case, the magnitude of the risk may be less as you only need to copy data once to rebuild. I’m not sure though as I’m not an expert on the topic.
    - quectophoton 3y ago
      I appreciate the advice. Thanks!
      - justsomehnguy 3y ago
        Re-checked, by the cache size Toshiba MQ03ABB200, 2TB is a CMR drive. Rule of thumb - drives with 16Mb (or less, but you probably don't want a 8Mb cache drive in 2023, lol) are CMR, drives with >128Mb cache are 99% SMR. And look at my sibling comment
        Tijdreiziger 3y ago
        Related question since we’re on the topic of cache: does it matter how much cache your drive has? I’ve seen drives with various cache sizes for sale, but I’ve never really looked into the difference.
        ciupicri 3y ago
        Seagate Exos X20 hard drives have a cache of 256 MB and they're using Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR).
        justsomehnguy 3y ago
        You are technically correct, best kind of correct. But you missed this: > It certainly seems that way. Earlier this year I was looking for internal 2.5" HDDs with more than 1TB of capacity, and I could only find Seagate drives.
        ciupicri 3y ago
        I didn't miss it, I was under the impression that the discussion steered to all kinds of hard-disks. I don't think you can install into a laptop the previously mentioned WD Red and Seagate IronWolf :-) By the way, I'm shocked that someone would put a SMR HDD into a laptop. Most laptops already had slow disks when CMR was used, but with SMR, I don't even want to think of the results.
- fuzzfactor 3y ago
  SMR is ungodly slow as a NTFS Windows boot/system HDD, compared to a regular HDD.
  - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
    Why would you use an HDD as a boot drive in this day and age anyway? SSDs are cheap (around €10 for the cheapest 128GB drives where I live [1]). [1] https://tweakers.net/solid-state-drives/vergelijken/#filter:PcvBCsIwEATQf9nzCts0TZp8gOA5R_FQklUjoQlJFVH8d6uIt-HNzBP47tM1cHDnXBrYfU9SoJbUY0dqkGhIqjUK06HpRxRy1N9GoSZlDghxvnFdPnfHif0S8wz2OKXGCLkGrtvIKYCFUuOlwQ9drstqU_N_Kex3627TIZTpxC4-GOxArzc https://tweakers.net/solid-state-drives/vergelijken/#filter:...
    - fuzzfactor 3y ago
      >Why would you use an HDD as a boot drive in this day and age anyway? I didn't purchase it but thought it would have similar boot times to a regular HDD, which is only a few seconds more of a delay than a SATA SSD. Nope this was one of the 8TB WD SMR's and takes about 10 times as long to boot compared to regular HDD. Still that's only a few minutes total and it's easy to just boot a few minutes earlier before I want to use that particular PC. Once Windows is initially loaded into memory (against upstream return data being slowly written to the SMR) it mostly works like normal after that. Plus when you've got terabytes there's plenty of room for a number of 64GB partitions to install various bootable OS's in, without hardly compromising the major amount of free space you have left over for bulk storage in the large partition(s).