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Western Digital sued over SMR debacle in HDDs
Back in April, there was quite a bit of discussion about WD mot mention that a part of their NAS line of HDDs was not RAID compatible due to storage methodology. They're now getting sued about it.
Users had been experiencing problems adding the latest WD Red NAS drives to RAID arrays, they suspected it is because they are actually shingled magnetic recording drives submarined into the channel. Problems surfaced once adding a new WD Red NAS drive to a RAID array. Although it was sold as a RAID drive, the device “keep getting kicked out of RAID arrays due to errors during resilvering,” was reported.
SMR and NAS are not compatible
Shingled media recording (SMR) disk drives take advantage of disk write tracks being wider than read tracks to partially overlap write tracks and so enable more tracks to be written to a disk platter. This means more data can be stored on a shingled disk than an ordinary drive. However, SMR drives are not intended for random write IO use cases because the write performance is much slower than with a non-SMR drive. Therefore they are not recommended for NAS use cases featuring significant WD now has been sued because such disks have been sold as NAS HDDs. Law firm Hattis Law has started the lawsuit.
The affected HDD (hard disk drive) models are:
- 3.5″ WD Red 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB
(SKUs: WD20EFAX, WD30EFAX, WD40EFAX, WD60EFAX)
- 3.5″ WD Blue 2TB, 6TB
(SKUs: WD20EZAZ, WD60EZAZ)
- 2.5″ WD Blue 1TB, 2TB
(SKUs: WD10SPZX, WD20SPZX)
- 2.5″ WD Black 1TB
(SKU: WD10SPSX)
Western Digital now Explains Which HDD Models Use SMR - 04/24/2020 11:47 AM
It's been quite a discussion, WD offering a NAS series that in hindsight, isn't RAID compatible because they are shingled magnetic recording drives....
Western Digital 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS are using SMR, an issue with NAS RAID? (Updated) - 04/22/2020 08:05 AM
And that's a problem with RAID NAS setups. Blocks and Files report that users are experiencing problems adding the latest WD Red NAS drives to RAID arrays, they suspected it is because they are actua...
Western Digital Announces the WD Gold Series U.2 NVMe Enterprise SSDs up-to 7.68 TB - 03/05/2020 09:28 AM
Western Digital is enabling small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to easily transition to NVMe storage and dramatically improve application performance with a new addition to its portfolio of data...
Western Digital Announces iNAND EU521 Fast UFS 3.1 Storage for 5G Devices - 02/24/2020 09:31 AM
Western Digital equips mobile developers to enhance the 5G smartphone user experience. An early supporter of JEDEC's implementation of WriteBooster under the UFS 3.1 standard, Western Digital is amon...
Western Digital BiCS5 3D NAND Technology - 01/31/2020 09:28 AM
Western Digital announced that that it has successfully developed its fifth-generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS5, continuing the company's leadership in delivering the industry's most advanced flash...
Fox2232
Senior Member
Posts: 10319
Joined: 2012-07-20
Senior Member
Posts: 10319
Joined: 2012-07-20
#5794584 Posted on: 06/01/2020 09:25 AM
Weird. I do not particularly often write data to my NAS. And I do not need it to write fast.
Weird. I do not particularly often write data to my NAS. And I do not need it to write fast.
sdamaged99
Senior Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: 2006-12-12
Senior Member
Posts: 2032
Joined: 2006-12-12
#5794593 Posted on: 06/01/2020 10:12 AM
You're missing the point. Whilst SMR drives are fine in a non parity striped array (unRAID), they suffer terribly in one which is (FreeNAS or hardware raid etc). They should be sued. They missold a product that was designed for use as a NAS hard drive, when the underlying technology within it, is ill suited for that task and actually puts your data at risk.
You're missing the point. Whilst SMR drives are fine in a non parity striped array (unRAID), they suffer terribly in one which is (FreeNAS or hardware raid etc). They should be sued. They missold a product that was designed for use as a NAS hard drive, when the underlying technology within it, is ill suited for that task and actually puts your data at risk.
Fox2232
Senior Member
Posts: 10319
Joined: 2012-07-20
Senior Member
Posts: 10319
Joined: 2012-07-20
#5794612 Posted on: 06/01/2020 12:00 PM
There is large quantity of SATA SSDs that can't read/write nowhere near their specifications.
When I got myself Patriot Burst 1TB, it could not write consistently more than 40MB/s of game files as I was transferring part of game library from NVMe.
Drive simply gave 100% active time to windows and it shown like 900~2500ms response time.
Then that thing had read speed mostly between 80~200MB/s before hitting 100% active time as I wanted to test how it moves (reads) data back to NVMe.
I could not stand it and it had to go.
Who's suing all those SSD manufacturers? I am pretty sure that this particular SSD is at similar level in practical use as HDD in article.
You're missing the point. Whilst SMR drives are fine in a non parity striped array (unRAID), they suffer terribly in one which is (FreeNAS or hardware raid etc). They should be sued. They missold a product that was designed for use as a NAS hard drive, when the underlying technology within it, is ill suited for that task and actually puts your data at risk.
There is large quantity of SATA SSDs that can't read/write nowhere near their specifications.
When I got myself Patriot Burst 1TB, it could not write consistently more than 40MB/s of game files as I was transferring part of game library from NVMe.
Drive simply gave 100% active time to windows and it shown like 900~2500ms response time.
Then that thing had read speed mostly between 80~200MB/s before hitting 100% active time as I wanted to test how it moves (reads) data back to NVMe.
I could not stand it and it had to go.
Who's suing all those SSD manufacturers? I am pretty sure that this particular SSD is at similar level in practical use as HDD in article.
Venix
Senior Member
Posts: 1243
Joined: 2016-08-01
Senior Member
Posts: 1243
Joined: 2016-08-01
#5794639 Posted on: 06/01/2020 01:28 PM
@Fox2232 i think the issue is they where sold for raid purposes and they could not work on a raid array at all getting kicked out of the array etc
I do not know about you if i had a pick up track and the truck was ejecting anything i try to load at it ... I would have been pretty pissed about it :p
@Fox2232 i think the issue is they where sold for raid purposes and they could not work on a raid array at all getting kicked out of the array etc
I do not know about you if i had a pick up track and the truck was ejecting anything i try to load at it ... I would have been pretty pissed about it :p
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Senior Member
Posts: 6580
Joined: 2018-03-21
I don't think this lawsuite is going to succeed, the drive is for better or worse, a hard drive.