In the following we want to look at the model WD60EFRX-CMR WD Red Plus NAS hard drive with 6 TB of the WD Red Plus hard drive series. Ars may earn compensation on sales from links on this site. In (very) brief, SMR disks generally perform well enough in light storage workloads, with plenty of idle time between storage requests—but they can fall catastrophically flat on their faces when hit with more demanding workloads. Form-Factor: Storage Capacity: WD Red: WD Red Pro: WD Blue: WD Black: WD Purple: 2.5" 500GB or below--CMR: CMR-2.5" 1TB: CMR-SMR: SMR-2.5" 2TB--SMR--3.5" 1TB or below The WD Red was specially developed for NAS systems that have one to eight drive bays in 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch sizes. In the following we want to look at the model WD60EFRX-CMR WD Red Plus NAS hard drive with 6 TB of the WD Red Plus hard drive series. Because the different recording methods behave differently and are therefore sometimes better and sometimes worse for the intended purpose. We’ll also take a look at two specific types of hard drives with CMR recording technology: the new WD Red Plus series and the Seagate Ironwolf series. The 8TB and larger drives with the “EFAX” code use CMR technology. The company announced that the drives that use SMR technology range from WD Red HDD to WD Black HDDs. SMR hard drives have TRIM support, so if it is listed it is SMR. This is getting absurd. This allows multiple users and the transfer of large data to be easily managed. The ZFS filesystem, in particular, tends to present SMR disks with challenges they have difficulty handling. The new branding replaces long tables full of internal model numbers—which might not be reflected accurately on reseller sites, even if the consumers know which ones to use. For permanent writing activities and the transfer of large amounts of data at high transfer rates, i.e. Jim Salter when the speed of large data transfers is important, CMR hard drives are the better choice. Sign up or login to join the discussions! “Currently, Western Digital’s WD Red 2TB-6TB drives are device-managed SMR (DMSMR). And best to go external with a 3.5. Which technology should I use for my hard drives? Last night, a Western Digital executive reached out to Ars to let us know of a blog post concerning their controversial Red drives. The majority of consumers buying small Synology, Netgear, or other purpose-built NAS devices are likely using them intermittently, with a small number of overall users, and mostly for large files such as digital photos, movies, and music. “The information you shared from [Geizhals] appears to be inaccurate. Click to find out more. Clearly stating that SMR drives should be used only in low-demand use cases. SMR is a technology that can introduce more capacity onto a platter, as well as introduces performance differences, particularly in writes. This results in extremely low average throughput (compared with the drive’s available throughput) and provides plenty of idle time for the DMSMR drive to perform the necessary background operations, making it an ideal fit for this application. In this case, a hard disk with a CMR recording method should definitely be used.CMR hard disks are a good choice when data is to be stored at high transfer rates or particularly large amounts of data. WD was foolish to introduce SMR into their Red line; they're not going to triple down on that mistake by now also putting it into Red Plus, after explicitly vowing that Red Plus will be CMR only. Once permanently stored in the SMR zones, the data can be read at about the same speed as it would be from an equivalent CMR disk—SMR's performance limitations are strictly bound to writes. List of WD CMR and SMR hard drives (HDD) Updated table : 23/10/2020 Now … WD appears to be doing now what they should have done from the beginning. “You are correct that we do not specify recording technology in our WD Red … In addition to the standard controller cache, SMR hard disks also have an on-disk cache in the outer tracks. They offer more storage capacity and are more energy efficient than CMR, which makes them ideal for archiving tasks. PMR is also used in this method – similarities and differences to CMR are discussed in more detail below in the text. Your email address will not be published. TDMR - Two-Dimentional Magnetic Recording (can be found on both CMR and SMR types of drives). The real question moving forward is how well Western Digital's blog post announcing the new branding will tie in with the actual product details seen on reseller sites. In response to heated criticism for not disclosing that some of its hard drives use slower SMR technology, WD penned a blog post outlining its plans … Original story 7:34am ET If you never committed enough write operations at once to overflow the large CMR cache area, and you gave the drive extended amounts of idle time to "breathe," you'd see no performance difference between CMR and SMR disks—although, as some NAS users have commented, "you can hear them running all the time." Western … In general, one speaks of CMR, i.e. Comment document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "aea28022a28d6584534b4740b7fa0ece" );document.getElementById("a2f30e4be5").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The existing SMR models—WD 20/30/40/60 EFAX—will retain their existing model numbers and will retain their existing WD Red branding. As we mention on our last podcast, several users were frustrated to find that WD Red NAS drives they purchased were SMR when they thought they were CMR. Currently, Western Digital’s WD Red 2TB-6TB drives are device-managed SMR (DMSMR). This is a CMR hard disk. Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. With a Bolt (or Edge) first all all best to use a CMR drive even if SMR works. The issue isn’t that we don’t understand SMR or DMSMR. The basic recording of hard disks takes place in such a way that a write head writes the data to platter – there it is stored. If your drive is not found in this guide, please send me pictures from both, the label and the PCB sides of the HDD (or full model and serial number if you cannot take the pictures) and I'll … WIRED Media Group Your email address will not be published. Choosing Between CMR and SMR Technology in Hard Drives. conventional magnetic recording, when hard drives with pure PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) technology are used.SMR, or Shingled Magnetic Recording, is the second recording method. There's a fairly large CMR cache area on the otherwise SMR disks, as well as a 256MiB volatile (RAM) cache. This may slow down the writing process drastically. Meanwhile, the CMR disks formerly known as WD Red—in sizes from 1TB to 14TB—get a new "WD Red Plus" branding and label, although their model numbers also remain the same. Maltz on April 30th, 2020 - 12:03am . If it is not listed, it is probably CMR and you do not have any problem. With the NAS system of the Red hard drives, for example, you can stream media, save and exchange data and manage digital content very quickly and easily. WD Red drives will use SMR, but WD Red Plus and WD Red Pro SKUs will stick to CMR tech. This report is the latest in a series on hard drive manufacturers slipping SMR technology into existing disk lines, with little or no notice to customers. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1/1/20) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1/1/20) and Ars Technica Addendum (effective 8/21/2018). Basically, SMR hard disks are not particularly well suited if the hard disk is to be constantly and permanently doing write operations, as this can lead to a cache overflow. On the one hand, this process is more space-saving in the end, but it also shows the big difference to CMR technology: If the faster on-disk cache is filled before the controller can transfer the data to the SMR area, then the cache must first emptied or rewritten before new data can be saved again. Clearly stating that SMR drives should not be used with ZFS ever. For small business, "intensive," or ZFS workloads, there's the Red Plus line—which effectively just means the older, pre-SMR models for now. The speed is 5400 rpm; is written with CMR. for my house. All rights reserved. CNMN Collection It’s that we DO understand it, and that WD has added it to drive models that didn’t have it before, in lines where it is COMPLETELY inappropriate. Therefore, the write head writes very close to the previous web, so that it remains readable. The use of SMR technology in Western Digital Red is not going away—but moving forward, "Red" will exclusively mean SMR disks. Western Digital has heralded a positive shift in its approach to users of shingled WD Red NAS drives, via a short statement on the company blog.. As described in our recent article Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording (SMR), some users can experience performance problems in situations such as adding the drives to RAID groups which use … For those consumers, an SMR-equipped Red will probably be okay—they're unlikely to push through the CMR cache, and even if they do, the SMR management firmware can probably handle the direct writes fairly well. After the recording, the data is transferred from the controller to the SMR area as soon as possible. A distinction is made between two common recording methods: CMR and SMR. Required fields are marked *. This procedure was developed in order to be able to provide more than 750 GB with the common 3.5 inch hard drives. The company is taking a new branding initiative to clarify the technology used in its NAS drives—in the near future, "WD Red" will exclusively mean disks using Shingled Magnetic Recording technology, and "WD Red Plus" will mean disks using Conventional Magnetic Recording. 8.3, the popular Siemens small controller is connected to the cloud, Ethernet over Coax: A stable internet connection in every room, Established brands holding on to their advantage in the European smart home, Avoid critical aerosol concentrations with Testo’s practical measuring instruments, Smart Home via Bluetooth – Frogs as real communication talents, New high performance LED construction spotlights by Brennenstuhl, Smoke detectors: Warning devices that can save lives, Window ventilation, secondary air units and co – Proper ventilation at home and in the office. Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) or Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)? Although all three remaining major hard drive vendors—Western Digital, Toshiba, and Seagate—have "submarined" SMR disks into existing channels without doing much to notify customers about it, only Western Digital has done so with disks designed specifically for NAS, or Network Attached Storage, use. I am looking to create a Plex Media Server for music, videos, tv shows, photos, etc. WD online chat says that all are CMR but I am extremely skeptical. There are numerous options in the market. When asked to comment on how prices of the existing EFRX and EFAX models will shift in order to make Red less expensive than Red Plus, the only response was "I can only comment on the [preceding] at this time," followed by "WD Red Plus will be available in August time period.". Our use-case analysis shows that SOHO workloads typically are based on short periods of access to the drives. Do be cautious and know what you are buying. A few weeks ago, a messagepopped up on the zfs-discuss mailing list: The unexpected shift from CMR to SMR in these NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives has caused problems above and beyond simple performance; the user quoted above couldn't get his SMR disks to stay i… The CMR cache area on the drive will perform the same as an entirely CMR disk does—and if it has "downtime" between storage requests, the drive's firmware can spend that time reading data from the CMR cache and trickling it down to the considerably more limited main SMR storage area. Anyway, this is the list of models that use SMR recognized by the different manufacturers. PMR is the successor to Longitudinal Magnetic Recording (LMR) and achieves a data density three times higher than its predecessor LMR – the read / write head has been optimized for this and the vertical positioning also contributes to this. In addition to the WD Red NAS drives that the company previously admitted used SMR tech, WD is also shipping the tech into its 2.5"and 3.5" WD … Clearly disclosing which drives use SMR vs CMR. WD Red 8TB-14TB drives are CMR-based. Ad Choices. Seagate IronWolf NAS HDD 4TB, SATA 6GB / s, Significantly speed up your computer with SSD hard drives, NAS systems: The smart storage solution for the network, With LOGO! SMR, the Shingled Magnetic Recording, writes data overlapping, because it is based on the concept that the write head is larger and less filigree than the read head. Storage vendors appear to be getting much bolder about deploying the new technology into ever-smaller formats, presumably to save a bit on manufacturing costs. If there isn't prominent disambiguation between Red, Red Plus, and Red Pro on the product pages themselves, the new branding may not reach many of the people who need to see it. With PMR it is possible to write directly to the final storage location of the data on the hard disk without the data first having to be rewritten on the hard disk. PMR, or Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, is a method in which magnetization takes place horizontally and vertically on platters. Realizing this is a little difficult to track, Western Digital has provided a chart to identify all of their drives with DM-SMR. Western Digital doesn't publish details about the CMR cache area in its product datasheets, unfortunately—but typical estimates, such as what was shown in this blocksandfiles interview, range from 1GiB to 100GiB, depending in part on the size of the disk itself. This refers to the garbage collection process migrating data from CMR cache to SMR zones occurring in long idle times between operations. 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