Why We Need SMR Listed in Hard Drive Specs

As always, more on the STH main site here: https://www.servethehome.com/surrepti...

First off, great work by Chris Mellor at Blocks and Files for staying atop of this story https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14...

In this video, we discuss SMR v. CMR hard drives. We go into how the major manufacturers (Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba) have positioned SMR hard drives over the past few years and their popular use cases. We discuss the motivations manufacturers have for using SMR in the consumer space.

WD Red drives designed for NAS solutions where RAID arrays can be particularly sensitive to SMR impacts were swapped without WD telling customers. We discuss why this practice needs to end and why WD's response fell well short of what is needed.

In the end, we need disclosure and I offer this: just because someone or some business does not have the opportunity or means to purchase a higher-end drive, does not mean we should deprive them of an opportunity to make informed purchasing decisions to protect their livelihoods and memories.