Do i have an SMR drive?

[Origami Cactus]

So my External 12TB hdd has started doing weird stuff, after i wrote more than 12TB to it.

Spoiler

Sometimes, instead of a simple write operation, it reads and writes at the same time, absolutely plummeting the write speed to 30-50mb/s. 

Spoiler

Normal write is 120MB/s, but if i run crystaldiskmark, i get 193MB/s, and no such behaviour.

 

Full crystalDiskMark

Spoiler

 

Should i just DEFRAG the drive? Would that fix it?

 

And to be fair, it was a really really cheap 12TB drive, so it most definitely can't be CMR. It cost almost 2x less than what i paid for a 8TB internal HDD back in the day.

 

 

The Drive is WD MyBook 12TB, probably 2020 model. Not gonna take it apart yet, so can't take a picture of the drive. As far as i can see it is a white label WD drive.

[Aragorn-]

What is the drive model?

 

Your first diagram showing reads and writes isnt typical SMR behaviour. The reads/writes caused by SMR happen internal to the drive and the OS doesnt see them. That diagram instead shows something on the OS is reading and writing to the drive at the same time.

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Should i just DEFRAG the drive? Would that fix it?

There is no way to "fix" an SMR-drive. The read-modify-write operation is just simply an effect of SMR, you cannot do anything about that. That said, defrag wouldn't be an a bad idea anyways.

 

That said, I agree with @Aragorn- there: the OS does not see the read-modify-write behaviour, it's the drive's internal controller that does that. What's happening on your drive is something else, like e.g. some app trying to read at the same time as you're writing.

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, Aragorn- said:

What is the drive model?

 

Your first diagram showing reads and writes isnt typical SMR behaviour. The reads/writes caused by SMR happen internal to the drive and the OS doesnt see them. That diagram instead shows something on the OS is reading and writing to the drive at the same time.

WD My Book 12TB, 2020 model. 

But so then windows is screwing me over? But why? Weird stuff.

[Samfisher]

Drive model would be much more useful.  Picture of the top of the drive with the serial blurred out works too.

[Kilrah]

How full is it?

 

2 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

But so then windows is screwing me over? But why?

Could be antivirus scanning the files you've just written. Check CPU process usage to see if it's active.

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, Kilrah said:

How full is it?

Can see it on crystal diskmark, 63%.

 

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

Drive model would be much more useful.  Picture of the top of the drive with the serial blurred out works too.

Edited the post, and gave all the info i had.

[Aragorn-]

The big mybooks tend to be CMR drives. Plenty of folk shucking those for data storage and they're usually rebadged HGST helium drives.

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, Aragorn- said:

The big mybooks tend to be CMR drives. Plenty of folk shucking those for data storage and they're usually rebadged HGST helium drives.

Yeah, in the early days, they were even WD Red drives inside the MyBook, crazy stuff.

[Samfisher]

2 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Can see it on crystal diskmark, 63%.

 

Edited the post, and gave all the info i had.

Is this at all similar to what you have?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/dipv67/12tb_wd_mybook_shucked_wd120edaz_inside/

[Origami Cactus]

3 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

Is this at all similar to what you have?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/dipv67/12tb_wd_mybook_shucked_wd120edaz_inside/

This looks similar to what i can see from inside the casing yeah. The seq read and writes are similar too, while my 4k random reads were worse.

[Aragorn-]

Just now, Origami Cactus said:

Yeah, in the early days, they were even WD Red drives inside the MyBook, crazy stuff.

I bought one recently and it was CMR. Specifically it was a WD120EMAZ inside the enclosure.

 

Some more info here on 12TB WD Externals:

 

 

[Samfisher]

2 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

This looks similar to what i can see from inside the casing yeah. The seq read and writes are similar too, while my 4k random reads were worse.

According to WD after their WD Red SMR fiasco, they posted this :

 

 

However it doesn't include "white" labels that are in their own products.  I can't make up my mind on whether these are SMR drives or not, and apparently the internet cannot either.

[Aragorn-]

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

However it doesn't include "white" labels that are in their own products.  I can't make up my mind on whether these are SMR drives or not, and apparently the internet cannot either.

Theres plenty info available. As per my reddit post above, the EMAZ white label shares an RN number with the 12TB Red as well as the Ultrastar model mentioned.

 

WD SMR drives also support TRIM, whereas these drives dont.

 

Additionally, you'll note there are no SMR drives on WD's chart over 8TB.

With all of this data, i'm happy that these are CMR drives, which is why i'm using them in a ZFS array.

[Prodigy_Smit]

@Samfisher I don't think WD makes any 3.5 HDD's that are above 8tb that are SMR.

[Origami Cactus]

Looks like for now, the 12TB versions are free from SMR trickery.