The new scandal in the Hard drive industry - The simple truth / Addressing confusion and misinformation

[Vishera]

A lot of people posted about the topic,most of the replies were inaccurate or misleading,

It's time to get some order into this chaos and explain the scandal simply and shortly.

 

What is the scandal about?

Western Digital is selling Red drives (Their NAS lineup) that are not suitable for NAS/RAID.

 

What does it mean?

It means that if you are looking for a drive for your NAS and buy one of those - You may have RAID related problems with your NAS.

 

What about other manufacturers?

There is no concern here - As long as you don't use normal desktop drives for RAID/NAS applications it will be the same as it was before,nothing has changed.

The rest of the manufacturers did nothing wrong here,but it would be helpful if they included in the datasheets if a said drive is SMR or CMR.

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, Vishera said:

There is no concern here

Ummm....

4 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Western Digital is selling Red drives (Their NAS lineup) that are not suitable for NAS/RAID.

That's the problem.

[Vishera]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

Ummm....

That's the problem.

It's only with Western Digital...With other manufacturers there is no concern for it as of now.

5 minutes ago, Vishera said:

What about other manufacturers?

There is no concern here

 

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

It's only with Western Digital...With other manufacturers there is no concern for it as of now.

 

I have read conflicting info on that, whether it affects other makers or not. Time will tell I suppose. Now there is an official seagate rep here, maybe we should get him and his opinion here

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I have read conflicting info on that, whether it affects other makers or not. Time will tell I suppose. Now there is an official seagate rep here, maybe we should get him and his opinion here

I have read the original articles,They investigated and talked with all major manufacturers,

It affects Barracuda drives but they are not for NAS,As for Toshiba It affects some desktop models but they are not NAS drives either.

Only Western Digital is in the Wrong here.

[Vishera]

@seagate_surfer,We would love to hear your opinion in the matter.

[Arika]

29 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Western Digital is selling Red drives (Their NAS lineup) that are not suitable for NAS/RAID.

the bold part is wrong. they are fine for NAS, they are dropping out in RAID. if you ran them solo or JBOD, then they work as intended

[Vishera]

Just now, Arika S said:

the bold part is wrong. they are fine for NAS, they are dropping out in RAID. if you ran them solo or JBOD, then they work as intended

Is a NAS drive that has problems with RAID really a NAS drive?

[Arika]

Just now, Vishera said:

Is a NAS drive that has problems with RAID really a NAS drive?

Yes, NAS stands for Network Attached Storage. Literally storage that can be accessed via the network. it has features that allow it to run better than a consumer drive in such an environment with other drives buzzing nearby, doesn't mean it HAS to be in RAID.

 

I have a NAS that doesn't run in RAID, and it uses NAS drives because they are in close proximity to each other.

 

 

Where WD screwed up is that all over the product page it says

Quote

Designed for RAID environments

Which may be the case and not technically wrong, but it's failing in some RAID set ups, so something is clearly wrong and they dont get a free pass for that. But if you were to buy them and use them in a non-raid configuration, then this scandal wont affect you. 

 

Which i think is where a lot of people are getting it wrong. the drives work, they are "NAS" drives, but for one reason or another i has issues with RAID. not going to put them in RAID? then it doesn't even become a factor when buying a drive or 2.

People seem to be under the assumption that the drives are DOA and not fit for any purpose, which is incorrect. it doesn't meet WDs claimed abilities, but the drives still work as drives

[Vishera]

11 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Yes, NAS stands for Network Attached Storage. Literally storage that can be accessed via the network. it has features that allow it to run better than a consumer drive in such an environment with other drives buzzing nearby, doesn't mean it HAS to be in RAID.

 

I have a NAS that doesn't run in RAID, and it uses NAS drives because they are in close proximity to each other.

For me if a NAS drive can be problematic with RAID i had rather buy 2 consumer desktop drives at the same price,

But i already did that,I use a couple of Toshiba P300 3TB in RAID 5 for my NAS,The 3TB model i use is CMR

11 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Which i think is where a lot of people are getting it wrong. the drives work, they are "NAS" drives, but for one reason or another i has issues with RAID. not going to put them in RAID? then it doesn't even become a factor when buying a drive or 2.

People seem to be under the assumption that the drives are DOA and not fit for any purpose, which is incorrect. it doesn't meet WDs claimed abilities, but the drives still work as drives

I have never said they are failing or anything like it,i just said that they may have RAID related problems.

[Arika]

3 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I have never said they are failing or anything like it,i just said that they may have RAID related problems.

that's what the issue is though. WD Reds are failing during rebuilds... in RAID

 

RAID and NAS are separate things. Any drive can be put in RAID, but not every drive is classified as a "NAS Drive"

 

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

WD Reds are failing during rebuilds... in RAID

Has there been a confirmation on whether software-RAID cares? As far as I understand, Btrfs, ZFS, Windows Storage Spaces etc. shouldn't care, but I haven't seen anyone actually confirm this or not.

[lewdicrous]

The new scandal from a week ago?

 

[Vishera]

6 minutes ago, Arika S said:

WD Reds are failing during rebuilds... in RAID

They are not failing,The problem is that most RAID controllers will report a failure/defective drive despite the drive being in good condition.

If i am not mistaken it's a compatibility issue between SMR drives and most RAID controllers,There are RAID controllers that work fine with SMR drives.

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

The new scandal from a week ago?

 

Yes,exactly.

[Tristerin]

For someone who is a novice for networking (but has a jbod Opteron server and a jbod home NAS) I do fully believe this is false advertisement.  For a novice like myself I would expect this to work in any industry standard NAS configuration without a hardware limitation.  

 

I also see the point though, that JBOD is a type of NAS...and its technically not false advertising.  

 

What this means for me?

 

As a consumer I will speak with my wallet and not be purchasing any WD storage at all, now or in the future.  I have quite a few WD spinning drives, shame they wont be getting my market segment in the future.

[WkdPaul]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

Where WD screwed up is that all over the product page it says

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

Designed for RAID environments

 

^ this

 

SMR are ok in a NAS, but some RAID setup (hardware and software) will have issue with it, so advertising it as "designed for RAID" is misleading, at best.

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I would expect this to work in any industry standard NAS configuration without a hardware limitation.  

Exactly what i think about it,seems like other manufacturers think like that too,

For some reason Western Digital thought it was OK to do such a thing.

7 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

What this means for me?

 

As a consumer I will speak with my wallet and not be purchasing any WD storage at all, now or in the future.  I have quite a few WD spinning drives, shame they wont be getting my market segment in the future.

That is a serious blow to Western Digital's reputation,I will probably won't buy any more drives from them any time soon,

I have been a customer of them for many years,Shame on them.

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

^ this

 

SMR are ok in a NAS, but some RAID setup (hardware and software) will have issue with it, so advertising it as "designed for RAID" is misleading, at best.

This

   ↓

11 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I would expect this to work in any industry standard NAS configuration without a hardware limitation.

 

[WkdPaul]

@Vishera

 

And as previously mentioned, not all NAS are setup in RAID, and not all RAIDs have issues with SMR drives. I don't agree with WD decision on this, but despite your thread title, you aren't clear in your corrections.

Edited April 22, 2020 by wkdpaul

[Vishera]

Just now, wkdpaul said:

And as previously mentioned, not all NAS are setup in RAID,

Yeah,I know that,There are really large drives that can be used for NAS without RAID.

1 minute ago, wkdpaul said:

and not all RAIDs have issues with SMR drives.

I earlier said that some RAID controllers work with SMR drives↓

42 minutes ago, Vishera said:

There are RAID controllers that work fine with SMR drives.

 

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

but despite your thread title, you aren't clear in your corrections.

Would you mind to elaborate and suggest corrections?

I think that my thread is by far the most clear of everything posted on the matter,but nothing is perfect and i'd be glad to make corrections.

[WkdPaul]

2 hours ago, Vishera said:

that are not suitable for NAS/RAID.

That part isn't clear (IMO), as you stated, some, if not most NAS, won't have an issue with SMR drives.

 

 

Here's something that (IMO) is better formulated, you're free to edit at your liking

Quote

Western Digital is selling Red drives (2TB to 6TB drives in their NAS lineup) that are not suitable for some RAID setups (for example with ZFS RAID set enlargements and with FreeNAS).

 

 

EDIT ; regardless, I would personally avoid WD Reds. Seagate came out to officially say their NAS drives are 100% SMR free.

Edited April 22, 2020 by wkdpaul

[2FA]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

Has there been a confirmation on whether software-RAID cares? As far as I understand, Btrfs, ZFS, Windows Storage Spaces etc. shouldn't care, but I haven't seen anyone actually confirm this or not.

The original reports came from the ZFS mailing list, but that isn't an SMR issue so much as the SMR Reds behaving incorrectly by issuing a sector not found result randomly during resilver, if I remember correctly. I don't recall any sort of drive ejection issues in regards to SMR prior to the Red fiasco. WD added TRIM to the those SMR Reds which I think has a bug in its implementation.

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, 2FA said:

The original reports came from the ZFS mailing list, but that isn't an SMR issue so much as the SMR Reds behaving incorrectly by issuing a sector not found result randomly during resilver, if I remember correctly. I don't recall any sort of drive ejection issues in regards to SMR prior to the Red fiasco. WD added TRIM to the those SMR Reds which I think has a bug in its implementation.

The author of the original article suspected it resulted from a firmware issue of the SMR Red drives and lack of testing.

[leadeater]

19 hours ago, 2FA said:

The original reports came from the ZFS mailing list, but that isn't an SMR issue so much as the SMR Reds behaving incorrectly by issuing a sector not found result randomly during resilver, if I remember correctly. I don't recall any sort of drive ejection issues in regards to SMR prior to the Red fiasco. WD added TRIM to the those SMR Reds which I think has a bug in its implementation.

Well a lot of the FreeNAS community also use WD Reds above the recommended 8 drives per system and also in vdev groups larger than that too. Don't shoot the messenger but WD has always said for use in systems with 8 disks or less, originally they were for 5 or less but that increase a few years ago. WD Reds have always been bottom of the barrel minimum viable product with only slight optimizations for firmware and very basic vibration compensation with no vibration sensors so NAS systems cannot do or see anything related to that.

 

When you sort by lowest price you basically get what you get. "I got away with it in the past" when using a product outside of it's designed purpose sadly is what it is, it used to be fine but now it's not. Unless WD fixes the problem or reverts the change I don't see the situation changing. They'll work fine in the 2-6 bay OEM NAS's they are made for and not much else.