hitardo

The three major HDD manufacturer - Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba - have been implementing slower technology (SMR) in their most recent revisions of their hard drives, without telling customers.
 
Originally, this was noticed by a user, who contacted BlocksAndFiles.com for further investigation.
This was felt as users inserting a new HDD drive to their RAIDs, but the new HDD (with SMR) kept pulling out of the RAID.
 
In my opinion, this is unacceptable, because manufacturers decreased the performance significantly of their products, while keeping the same marketing name.
You could watch today a video, read a column, or see the performance of a given HDD at your friend's house; and when you purchase the exact same drive (e.g. WD Red 4TB), you would be getting an inferior drive.

Even if you bought a drive in the past, and now hit the "Reorder this item" button, to increase your RAID, you would have issues.
Thus, I consider this a very bad precedent!
 
Sources
 
The news I read originally was from NotebookCheck.net, here:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-Seagate-and-Toshiba-have-been-using-slower-technology-in-some-recent-hard-drives-without-telling-customers.461822.0.html
 
The original investigation was from BlocksAndFiles.com, which separated their articles by manufacturer:
Western Digital: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
Seagate: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
Toshiba: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/16/toshiba-desktop-disk-drives-undocumented-shingle-magnetic-recording/
 
Additional sources:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-fesses-up-some-red-hdds-use-slow-smr-tech
 
Quotes
NotebookCheck.com:
 
 BlocksAndFiles.com's Western Digital column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Seagate column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Toshiba column:
 
CHANGE LOG:
18/04/2020 @ 03:23pm GMT - Original post
19/04/2020 @ Unknown - Moderator changes (thank you!)
20/04/2020 @ 08:59am GMT - Added Tom's Hardware source, separated the Seagate quotes, and added a clearer introduction.
 

Thanks for the tip.
Will start using it.
 
Yes, it depends on your application.
For archiving, yes, you will only feel when you are storing.
Then, for long term storage, there is no significant pani.
 
But, for NAS application - like WD Red or Seagate Barracuda - I think this is not acceptable.
 
Personally, I think this is a movement for OEMs to differentiate their Pro versions from their non-Pro versions.
This way, most users (especially SOHO and enthusiast), will spend more on their Pro lineup.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

Source: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
 
@Demonking apparently, the HDD you mentioned is affected.
 
Model: ST2000DM008 
By the link you posted: https://www.newegg.com/seagate-barracuda-st2000dm008-2tb/p/N82E16822184773?item=N82E16822184773

@hitardo
I think you should add this to the OP:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/list-of-known-smr-drives.83993/
 
A lot of good info is accumulated in that thread.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

I am not against SMR.
I think - as said before - if there is a use case for it with enough demand, that technology will survive.
HDDs are not going anywhere!
 
However, I am against manufacturers decreasing significantly the performance of a product, without letting the consumer know.
It is important to highlight that these HDD remained on the same family of products, without a change in labelling, marketing name, or even specification sheets.
 
This is not transparent, and consumer will be mislead by previous tests, reviews, and experiences.

Thank you for you great insight.
And I agree with you: consumer needs are significantly different from the enterprise.
 
And, NAS - for consumers - is not a cold storage, in my opinion.
NAS is accessed more frequently.
And WD Red (up to 6GB) are commonly used in NAS application.
 
And your text confirms my theory:
They want to separate further their non-Pro to their Pro families of products.
 
Cheers.

Processors change series (or generation).
This way, you have a way to tell the difference.
 
HDD have families, but not generations.
This is wrong doing.
 
Not exactly.
The perfomrnace - which they advertise - decreased significanlty.
Thus, this is not acceptable.

If a company decreases performance of a product, without saying anything, everyone should starts worrying.
Moreover, this could be extended to every product of those companies.
 
This is particularly worrying, as many people seems to be ok with this - as seen in this thread.
Which I personally think is not seeing the big picture.
Because tomorrow, this may occur with your HDD, Processor, Smartphone, or Camera.
 
Furthermore, we all should show our opinion on this to the OEMs, and to our local authorities.
I will surely do that.

Guys, I am not against SMR.
 
And there is space in the market for that
 
The thing is:
They decreased  the performance of the drives, without (1) telling consumer, and without (2) changing the product name / branding / family.
 
I reiterate: the main goals of these OEMs - maybe in conjunction - is to:
a) Cheap out on production costs;
b) Enlarge to the difference between the non-Pro and the Pro version, in order to force SOHO and enthusiast users to buy the more expensive Pro versions.
 
Moreover, this is greatly complicated when people have RAIDs already implemented.
What are you supposed to do?!
Change your entire RAID, and buy all new HDDs?
 
This is not acceptable, especially because of the two reasons I stated on the second paragraph.

Guys, I am not against SMR.
 
And there is space in the market for that
 
The thing is:
They decreased  the performance of the drives, without (1) telling consumer, and without (2) changing the product name / branding / family.
 
I reiterate: the main goals of these OEMs - maybe in conjunction - is to:
a) Cheap out on production costs;
b) Enlarge to the difference between the non-Pro and the Pro version, in order to force SOHO and enthusiast users to buy the more expensive Pro versions.
 
Moreover, this is greatly complicated when people have RAIDs already implemented.
What are you supposed to do?!
Change your entire RAID, and buy all new HDDs?
 
This is not acceptable, especially because of the two reasons I stated on the second paragraph.

The three major HDD manufacturer - Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba - have been implementing slower technology (SMR) in their most recent revisions of their hard drives, without telling customers.
 
Originally, this was noticed by a user, who contacted BlocksAndFiles.com for further investigation.
This was felt as users inserting a new HDD drive to their RAIDs, but the new HDD (with SMR) kept pulling out of the RAID.
 
In my opinion, this is unacceptable, because manufacturers decreased the performance significantly of their products, while keeping the same marketing name.
You could watch today a video, read a column, or see the performance of a given HDD at your friend's house; and when you purchase the exact same drive (e.g. WD Red 4TB), you would be getting an inferior drive.

Even if you bought a drive in the past, and now hit the "Reorder this item" button, to increase your RAID, you would have issues.
Thus, I consider this a very bad precedent!
 
Sources
 
The news I read originally was from NotebookCheck.net, here:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-Seagate-and-Toshiba-have-been-using-slower-technology-in-some-recent-hard-drives-without-telling-customers.461822.0.html
 
The original investigation was from BlocksAndFiles.com, which separated their articles by manufacturer:
Western Digital: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
Seagate: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
Toshiba: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/16/toshiba-desktop-disk-drives-undocumented-shingle-magnetic-recording/
 
Additional sources:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-fesses-up-some-red-hdds-use-slow-smr-tech
 
Quotes
NotebookCheck.com:
 
 BlocksAndFiles.com's Western Digital column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Seagate column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Toshiba column:
 
CHANGE LOG:
18/04/2020 @ 03:23pm GMT - Original post
19/04/2020 @ Unknown - Moderator changes (thank you!)
20/04/2020 @ 08:59am GMT - Added Tom's Hardware source, separated the Seagate quotes, and added a clearer introduction.
 

Guys, I understand your point of view.
But this case is more than that.
 
We are talking of and OEM changing the core of the product, without communicating the change.
 
Same as, a new phone:
Samsung Quiet S, with a Snapdrogn SoC.
Then, after selling millions of those, Samsung changes to:
Samsung Quiet S, with a MediaTek SoC.
 
What would you think of that?
Maybe call it Samsung Quiet S1, or S less.
But never call it the same.
 
Especially when the performance has decreased.

Guys, I understand your point of view.
But this case is more than that.
 
We are talking of and OEM changing the core of the product, without communicating the change.
 
Same as, a new phone:
Samsung Quiet S, with a Snapdrogn SoC.
Then, after selling millions of those, Samsung changes to:
Samsung Quiet S, with a MediaTek SoC.
 
What would you think of that?
Maybe call it Samsung Quiet S1, or S less.
But never call it the same.
 
Especially when the performance has decreased.

The three major HDD manufacturer - Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba - have been implementing slower technology (SMR) in their most recent revisions of their hard drives, without telling customers.
 
Originally, this was noticed by a user, who contacted BlocksAndFiles.com for further investigation.
This was felt as users inserting a new HDD drive to their RAIDs, but the new HDD (with SMR) kept pulling out of the RAID.
 
In my opinion, this is unacceptable, because manufacturers decreased the performance significantly of their products, while keeping the same marketing name.
You could watch today a video, read a column, or see the performance of a given HDD at your friend's house; and when you purchase the exact same drive (e.g. WD Red 4TB), you would be getting an inferior drive.

Even if you bought a drive in the past, and now hit the "Reorder this item" button, to increase your RAID, you would have issues.
Thus, I consider this a very bad precedent!
 
Sources
 
The news I read originally was from NotebookCheck.net, here:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Western-Digital-Seagate-and-Toshiba-have-been-using-slower-technology-in-some-recent-hard-drives-without-telling-customers.461822.0.html
 
The original investigation was from BlocksAndFiles.com, which separated their articles by manufacturer:
Western Digital: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
Seagate: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
Toshiba: https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/16/toshiba-desktop-disk-drives-undocumented-shingle-magnetic-recording/
 
Additional sources:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-fesses-up-some-red-hdds-use-slow-smr-tech
 
Quotes
NotebookCheck.com:
 
 BlocksAndFiles.com's Western Digital column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Seagate column:
 
BlocksAndFiles.com's Toshiba column:
 
CHANGE LOG:
18/04/2020 @ 03:23pm GMT - Original post
19/04/2020 @ Unknown - Moderator changes (thank you!)
20/04/2020 @ 08:59am GMT - Added Tom's Hardware source, separated the Seagate quotes, and added a clearer introduction.
 

One day to go, and we need to stay strong Folding@Home :-)
 
Give it POWERRRRR!

One day to go, and we need to stay strong Folding@Home :-)
 
Give it POWERRRRR!

One day to go, and we need to stay strong Folding@Home :-)
 
Give it POWERRRRR!

One day to go, and we need to stay strong Folding@Home :-)
 
Give it POWERRRRR!

For every member of LMG:
 
a) What are your main difficulties being an internet "celebrity" regarding your work and home life?
 
b) How do you fell about - almost - everybody being a specialist in anything you do in the channel?

Tech from A to Z, but we prefer in between.