TechyBen

Wow, this seems unacceptable. Especially if a drive is sold under the same name and may or may not be affected.
 
If they are selling drives that operate differently, they should have a different name. Simple as that. Name them WD Red S or WD Yellow-polkadot or whatever.
 
Manufacturers always try to get away with stuff like this. Just like Nvidia with their lower end GPU's selling less powerful GPU's under the same name.

Western Digital (who owned HGST) phased the HGST brand out a few years ago. HGST no longer exists.
 
But I don't know which ones are SMR and PMR! That's the problem the boycot is supposedly over.
 
The problem isn't SMR drives existing. I think they have a place as low cost bulk storage drives. I don't have any problem with WD/Seagate/Toshiba selling SMR drives. I just want them to list if it's PMR or SMR in the data sheet.

No one until they fix the issue. That's how boycotts work...

One could be more selective thought: Since apparently lists of SMR drives exist, we could just avoid those altogether.

The maximum amount of settlement you can get in small claims courts in the SSA will vary vastly from State to State. However, it is possible to file consumer fraud claims with the appropriate State Attorney General's Office.
 
I have successfully done so in the past when a software developer was selling softer CDs with buggy earlier versions of the software without disclosing the CDs they were selling did not have the current, updated version of the software on them and a download would be necessry to bring the software up to date (this was way back when I was on dialup and downloading the massively sized software was nearly impossible). My settlement was only the $10 I spent for the CD but my real goal was to force the manufacturer to acknowledge that their CDs were not the latest version. Although the developer never admitted fault, they did "voluntarily" clean up their act from then on.
 
I don't have a dog in this fight otherwise I would be doing this.
 
I stopped buying HDDs several years ago although for considerably different reasons. Still, this latest fiasco with HDDs makes me even more glad I took the plunge and went all SSD.

I have hard time believing 9900K based system would consume under 150W running R20.

Yeah, 300 to 400 watts for the CPU alone?
According to TechPowerUp, the entire computer they were using to run Cinebench consumed 146 watts with an 9900K. Does he really think a Comet Lake-S CPU will draw twice as much power as an entire 9900K system (GPU, motherboard, fans and everything)?
If I had to guess, I would say the power draw will be about half of what he said. It might top out at 200 watts in some very heavy scenarios like Cinebench (with the 10 core version that is), but I don't think it will be more than that.
 
For comparison, the 3700X system used 146 watts in the same test. The 3900X system uses 201 watts.
I don't think a 10 core Intel CPU will use twice as much power as a 12 core AMD chip. AMD is more efficient, but the difference isn't as big as this guy things.

You don't need to account for it if it's not actually the problem and is unrelated, correlation is not causation and you're being a great sample of this. Show me that causal evidence link otherwise it doesn't matter.
 
Just like it doesn't matter what the platter is made out of, or the composition of the magnetic film applied to it. Did you know there are difference for both and these have changed over the Years?
 
You also know that the number of platters have changed over the years, even on PMR disks, so do you think the number of these matter? Does a 4 platter 1TB disk perform better than a 2 platter 1TB disk or a 1 platter 1TB disk? If you don't know the answer to this then saying it needs to be on the spec sheet just because it's different is a not a good argument, you have no idea if it's even relevant or why you need to know, or even if it has an impact at all.
 
It's not hiding if it's irrelevant and you don't need to know. You haven't proven you need to know, you haven't evidenced how it impacts you at all.
 
Then EVERYTHING you have been saying is also invalid, so are we done? You haven't tested anything, you have no evidence and everything you say is just coulds. It could be space ghosts? No it is space ghosts causing this problem. It could be so I demand WD tell me if WD Reds contain space ghosts!
 
How about like I said wait for evidence around the issue so you can be better informed about the problem so you can know what information to ask for and why you need to ask for it.

There is a performance penalty on paper as per how it was designed.  But that was 6 years ago,  technology has changed so much that there may not be a penalty anymore.  And if there is it may not be big enough to warrant any mention.  There are literally hundreds of different parts and features of each part that have an effect on performance, why does SMR warrant a specific mention over any of the other parts?  we have just as much information on them as we do SMR.
 
Do you see how many may's and and maybe's there are in all this?  it cannot be treated as an absolute as there is just not enough information to do that.  Please find a website or something that has performed benchmarks on various drives and concluded that today's SMR tech is indeed slower or the cause of certain issues.  Do that and you absolutely can legitimately call it a problem that needs  resolution,  like having it listed on drives that are advertised for specific uses like raid arrays or for boot drives.   But until you have that information, you are literally claiming consumer wide problem because some people have had an issue and a lot of maybes surrounding one aspect of those products.
 
 
 
 
 
 

WD never listed anything at all, for them you are wanting to add something that was never before under the belief it would somehow have informed you before the fact that it would impact you. Like I keep saying and will keep saying, DM-SMR usage could be utterly inconsequential and you wanting to know doesn't change anything. A company is perfectly within their right to not tell you this if it has no impact on you and the intended usage of the product.
 
As I've also said I'd like it listed, but I'm not going to stand around and try and claim that it being on the spec sheet would have done anything at all. You have no idea how DM-SMR impacts the disk at all, you don't know how it was designed. You don't know how large the PMR zone is in the disk and that is likely commercially sensitive information. There are things you just do not need to know and don't actually have a right to demand to know.
 
You are still attributing malice to the act of using DM-SMR, you are still saying with complete confidence it actually affects you and you are still saying it would affect your purchase choice on that ill-informed information. 
 
Again DM-SMR to you may as well be irrelevant, if the product functions correctly, has expected performance knowing DM-SMR is used is just an informative nice to have. If WD thinks it's a marketable technology that would increase sales it'll be slapped all over the box and shouted to high heaven, but it's not so it isn't.
 
Edit:
Also to be really clear you cannot claim you have been mislead when your argument is premised on these user claims and reports that DM-SMR is the cause of the problem. This is why you think there is a problem, this is why you think it even matters at all. As such you and everyone else are misleading themselves and I'm just telling you not to do that. You want to make some kind of consumer being mislead claim you will need evidence, which you currently lack.
 
You can ignore everything I'm saying and just trundle down the path you are but without evidence behind what you are saying it's just baseless complaining which holds water like a sieve.

Nah. Me liking Toshiba and Samsung is historical, and if they follow suit, I won't buy those products (but do realise they are massive companies... so if Sony Music make DRM breaking cds, I may still buy Sony headphones  , but won't buy Sony music/cds etc).
 
I'll go back to a company if I can trust it. But really. I don't want the hassle, so I avoid those companies that give me hassle.

Okay, where the funkmeister are you people getting your parts, and for what vehicle, because I just priced new parts (sorted by cheapest) for the last car I owned (1997 Honda Civic HX (14 inch wheels (OEM), super narrow because "fuel efficient" version) in which prices were darn near free (relative to other vehicles I've owned) and just for 4 new tires (from a brand I've never heard of), 4 spare-style steel wheels, new pads (front axle only, replacement), and new rotors (drilled/slotted are cheaper than OE solid replacements, also front axle only), and I'm at roughly $600USD. That's not including anything on the rear axle except wheels/tires (not even mounted/balanced).
Tires - 58.80 per/235.20 set of 4
Wheels - 67.67 per/270.68 set of 4
Brake Pads - 10.99 (set of 2 pairs, or one axle) (note warning: part may not be compatible with selected car)
Brake Pads option 2 - 25.99, first set without compatibility warning
Rotors - 37.99 per/ 2 per axle
 
$607.85 for the option with compatible pads, $592.85 for the option with possibly incompatible pads.
 
On topic: I wonder if that finish is chrome or anodized. Also, I am a fan of the hub-less design. Very TRON. I'd be interested in seeing a set of those disassembled.

1. 2TB PCIe SSD for $100 is still 2+ years away.  Not in 2021, probably 2022 or 2023.
2. RAM space is not as important as it used to be in the consumer market.  We don't have 16GB RAM budget laptops because most people won't use even close to that much.  Hell, 8GB is still good enough for AAA games in many cases!
 
Where RAM has advanced at a good clip is speed.  Standard DDR3 speed went from 1066 to 1866 in 5+ years.  Standard DDR4 has increased from 2133 to 3200 and counting in 4 years.  This is because CPUs, for both Intel and AMD, have quickly become far more reliant on the speed of the memory they are paired with.  (In 2016, RAM speed was largely meaningless to your typical types of consumers.)
 
And the upcoming DDR5 is so ridiculous in all aspects that not even DATACENTERS can justify it anytime soon.

If you ant fast and cheap, SATA is still a good option unless you really need raw sequential speeds and hate extra cables.

I never said that, I am on your side in that.

Its just that you talked like Toshiba did disclose it in the spec sheet always, while they arent. I was just trying to be devils advocate.
Seagate surfer said Ironwolf are not SMR, and Toshiba NAS drives are not SMR, both do desktop drives with SMR without saying it anywhere, so to me it looks like they are in the same boat. While WD is worse because they do it to the WD Reds.
Unless Seagate does the same thing as WD, I will go Seagate over WD in the future.

Skipped the last page and a bit as it felt like things where a bit circular so this is more of a general broad comment.
 
Depending on quite a few factors that would really need a full legal court case to decide on customers in the EU for which the downsides of SMR specifically would be an issue could still have WD and the others bent over a barrel on the issue. If your product, either as a brand or as a general product class has a perception of certain features/capabilities/e.t.c in the public consciousness of the customers buying that product and you don't meet all those expectations you are required to state that it doesn't meet those expectations somwhere, depending on how major an expectation it is there's also i believe occasions where you can't bury it in the small print it has to be pretty clearly stated in a more front leading way than would be the case with small print. Now weather NAs drives as a whole or WD Red as a brand has created a perception that there won't be SMR is way above my pay grade. But in potentia, they could still be in some real trouble in europe.

He meant major model or series aka "Red". Literally no one for home usage is buying drives based on these model numbers. No one. You only do this when you're looking for something ridiculously specific like I was chasing specs for WD UltraStar drives with HelioSeal and without instant secure wipe function but with 4Kn support. And you had to dig through bunch of specs to find the exact model number on which you then look for these exact models in stores. Because if you just search for "WD UltraStar" bunch of websites don't even show you all of them or they do all of them and then you wonder why one drive of same series and capacity costs almost 70€ more. It's that instant secure wipe thing for example. 4Kn also made it more expensive. And often these tiny details are not mentioned in online shops, I had to rely on vendor specs. But when vendor specs only list you useless things like SATA 6 Gb/s, you of course pick the one that's cheaper. It's been bunch of times that drives literally had no noteworthy differences which is why no one gives a damn about model numbers. But in this case, there was a huge difference inside. Not just firmware with tiny changes but whole different platter recording method and slower write speeds. That's a big deal. If people were warned ahead of time, they'd be careful about this and if spec sheet just had one extra actually useful like that just said "Recording method" and one would have CMR and another SMR and we wouldn't be discussing this at all.

Me? I have that control? Who said I'm refusing to buy them? I like the tech, I just want to make informed choices. Are you telling me I am not allowed to make informed choices?
 
I refuse to buy WD because it's WD and I don't like their products or business practices currently. I sometimes do buy from them, if the product seems ok...

You're not understanding the point.
 
IF YOU REFUSE TO BUY A WD RED WITH SMR TECH IN IT WD WILL DISCONTINUE WD RED FOR SOMETHING ELSE INCORPORATING SMR ANYWAY
 
Clear enough?

Which brings up a better question, why buy a red when a enterprise drive is cheaper in an enclosure 🤣

Maybe Seagate does have a brain for misleading people... Only reason for removing it. Or maybe it's deeper and harder to find, but removing something like that shouldn't be done as it makes deciding something that much harder, unless they fear smr would fail otherwise.
 
Personally I'd like it for uniformity more than anything. If I have all smr I'd like to keep it like that, same is true with cmr.

Also the older Seagate spec sheets have head counts in them and the new ones don't.
 
Old:

ST2000DM008 is DM-SMR btw
 

DM006 PMR
 
New:

If it were explained in the link you provided that I haven't made any claim about security versus non-security updates for Windows Insiders, then why you've multiple-times appealed to the distinction between which updates the Insider program handles is even more puzzling to me.
 
But as I said and showed you with Microsoft's own documentation, Microsoft are testing patches through regular Windows updates.
 
Hmm. I can say that I haven't actually done that. But I note, and hopefully others do as well, the intellectual dishonesty in your arbitrarily deciding that the discussion doesn't include manual Windows Update checks, and also the intellectual dishonesty in you feigning ignorance that I didn't additionally show that Microsoft use regular automatic Windows updates for testing:
 
Windows 10 Servicing Branches (CB, CBB, and LTSB), Semi-Annual Channel
 
So, even if humouring your arbitrary personal decision to not count manual Windows Update checks, it's still proven that, by Microsoft's own words, Microsoft are using regular Windows updates to test patches. So much for me not providing evidence of that claim... which I've now done 3 times over.
 
 
Aside from the obvious projection, your strategy here (and by the way, I've long noticed that it's a go-to one which you use often), is to simply impersonate the appearance and mannerism of someone who has put up a sound defence and hasn't been proven wrong over, and over. In a word, to bluff. But the opposite of that bluff is true.
 
I haven't desired to carry on a discussion with you in a very long time, and I don't consider you equipped for many of the discussions you get yourself wound up in. And if you didn't repeatedly attempt to misdirect and mischaracterize things I'd said, I wouldn't be responding to you. I am, pretty much only to correct your obfuscation of facts and to expose your efforts to concoct a fictional narrative about the discourse.

It may become a problem with windows because manually checking for updates gives you the beta updates (not fully tested).  This is something MS really need to make more apparent rather than burying the information in an article about Quality control.  Anyway's I never click that button, I leave updates set to recommended and never have an issue (fingers crossed).

That doesnt exist anymore, cheap non-existent quality and short life-span the trend nowadays.....
 
  
Because its irrelevant since not everyone gets it at the same time.....

OK. This is different. People were arguing over them being the same.
Still a poor move IMO over not noting the tech (see helium or microwave versions in the product line). Or things like number of platters, vibration load, etc etc.
 
Things such as the cache size, being different, for SMR, the seek/write times etc. Do make a difference, and only listing "its a drive!" is a poor move.
 
So thanks, having different model numbers is less misleading. Still a poor move. (Another example is say OLED in TVs/phones, if one manufacture, changes the model number by 1 digit/letter, then drops the OLED for LCD and backlight, and just "forgets" to put anything in the spec sheet listing "it's a display" and not the display tech). Poor move, though not illegal.
 
If someone is a total unreasonable and horrible person, that's not illegal and totally their right. But they may not get invited to my BBQ, may not get presents, and I may stop buying HDDs off them. (Hence why I get Samsung SSDs not crucial, and Toshiba HDDs not Seagate. ).