I’m looking for non-shingled spinning 2.5" SATA drives

  • due to data storage policies, it must NOT be a SSD but a spinning drive
  • due to the use of ZFS, it can’t be a SMR
  • 1Tb or more (2Tb would be nice)
  • ideally 9.5 mm or thinner (7mm would be preferred for a better airflow, 15 mm would require a 3d-printed cover)
  • ideally new (new-old stock and used drives would require a few days of testing to validate the SMART info and the absence of bad sectors)

I’ve heard the WD Blue 2.5" and the Seagate Exos might be valid options:

If you know about other options, could you please list them?

  • Far_Marsupial6303B
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    11 months ago

    Thinking about it, I think the Seagate manual stating Perpendicular is referencing the reserved CMR section that most SMR drives have. This makes sense since the manual states the ST5000LM000 has five platters. So it would be five, 1TB platters of which a portion is CMR.

    This also makes sense of the manual listing ST5000LM024 as having either four or five platters. Either four, 1TB platters with reserve CMR sectors or five, 800 SMR platters without the reserve.

    • csdvrxOPB
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      11 months ago

      OMG, I thought the issue was solved, but that means the 2Tb LM0003 I have may indeed be SMR! I guess this means I’ll try to find some HGST Travelstar 7K1000…

      The one in my hand is a 9.5mm ST2000LM003 branded Seagate, PN: HN-M201RAD/D1, rev A, F/W: 2BE10001, 5400 RPM, DP/N: 0TF52W, Made in China on July 2016 Site: DHT MSIP-REM-STX Momentus D

      If you want more details, I can check the manufacturer data (hdparm, smart…) or benchmark (ex: with fio on Linux) - anything that doesn’t require putting the drive in the ZFS pool!

      If you have other references (someone mentioned Toshiba), I’d be very interested.