Inspired by this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/184k6iu/are_nasrated_drives_really_worth_it/, here’s AFAIK, the complete list of SMR drives as of 11/26/23. Any corrections are greatly appreciated. Hopefully this thread will be made a sticky. I will be using it a reference for the numerous times this question is asked.
Important note: There are three types of SMR drives, DM-SMR, HM-SMR and HA-SMR.
DM-SMR (Drive Managed-SMR) is the most common and are what 99.9% of drives that home consumers will buy. All write/read activities are handled by the drives electronics.
HM-SMR (Host Managed-SMR) write/read activities are as the name stated, handled by specialized off drive hardware and software. This what is used in the current 26TB WD Ultrastar, upcoming 28TB WD drive and likely the upcoming 30TB Seagate drive.
HA-SMR (Host Aware-SMR) - I don’t fully understand how HA-SMR drives work, but they’re not as efficient at handling writes HM-SMR and are likely to be widely implemented/available.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/13z7w96/lets_discuss_dmsmr_hmsmr_hasmr_and_dropbox/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/146hb9k/information_about_cmr_to_smr_manufacturer/
https://zonedstorage.io/docs/getting-started/smr-disk
Barring any unfounded conspiracy theory, all generally available to the public >8TB drives 3.5" drives are not DM-SMR. While technically manufacturers could submarine SMR into drives once again, that would be utterly stupid and market suicide.
Thank you to HTWingNut for this list of current SMR drives.
WD Blue 8TB is a CMR drive and just as good as any NAS drive. But I’d avoid any consumer grade hard drives 8TB and under:
- Seagate Barracuda / Barracuda Compute [My note: The 1TB Seagate Barracuda is CMR
- WD Blue (except 8TB) [My note: 2-4TB drives may be CMR depending on model number]
- WD Red (Red Plus and Red Pro are fine tho)
- Toshiba DT02 [My note: 4/6TB]
- Toshiba P300 [My note: 4/6TB]
All consumer 2.5" Seagate and WD drive >500GB are SMR. The 9.5mm Toshiba L200 1TB is CMR, but the 7mm model is SMR.
Seagate’s 2.5" Exos E line are all CMR and tops out a 2.4TB (four, 600GB platters). The is/was (can’t find it on Toshiba’s site), a 1TB or possibly even 2TB Toshiba surveillance drive that is CMR.
https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/ap-en/company/news/news-topics/2020/04/storage-20200428-1.html
Correct. But this thread is about drives listed on the manufacturers sites as of 11/26/23.