WD selling SMR drives as WD Reds

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

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Armageus said:
Not just WD, it's also Seagate and Toshiba, so no safe choices:

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/...ives-undocumented-shingle-magnetic-recording/
Click to expand...

I am using a pair of 6TB Ironwolves which aren't on the list, or just haven't been added to it yet. I went with the WD drive due to Seagate not having the best reputation as of late.
 
Armageus said:
Not just WD, it's also Seagate and Toshiba, so no safe choices:

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-red-nas-drives-shingled-magnetic-recording/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/...ives-undocumented-shingle-magnetic-recording/
Click to expand...

At least Seagate isn't using SMR on NAS drives like WD clandestinely is!

So are all 2-6TB WD Red drives actually (DM)SMR? I have two Ironwolf 12TB drives and two Red 4TB (EFRX) drives in my server at present. The Reds are used for backups so random write performance is likely not too much of an issue but, when the time comes to upgrade, I'll likely get another pair of Ironwolfs (Ironwolves?)
 
Vertigo1 said:
At least Seagate isn't using SMR on NAS drives like WD clandestinely is!

So are all 2-6TB WD Red drives actually (DM)SMR? I have two Ironwolf 12TB drives and two Red 4TB (EFRX) drives in my server at present. The Reds are used for backups so random write performance is likely not too much of an issue but, when the time comes to upgrade, I'll likely get another pair of Ironwolfs (Ironwolves?)
Click to expand...

From what I saw on that original reddit link, the EFRX ones aren't SMR drives, it's the 2-6TB EFAX ones that are. Yours should be safe if they are the EFRX ones.
 
I ordered some from WD direct last week. I made sure to order the FRX part numbers as the newer FAX are SMR drives. Yo7 can also tell by the cache size being much bigger to try make up for the slower performance. It’s a bit sneaky because if you ask WD about this they say they do not disclose this information. But if FRX drives then they are not SMR
 
From what WD were saying it's not a problem on the 8TB+ Red drives, but my 10TB Reds share a similar model number and the larger cache. Main difference perhaps is that they are helium drives.

Model number is WD100EFAX-68LHPN0.

From what people are saying these drives aren't SMR, but I think the jury is still out on the extent of the cases.
 
I've just cancelled the order with WD for the drive I had ordered which is in transit at present. I'm also getting the feeling that it is about to turn into one of those customer service horror stories.
 
Fire_fly said:
I've just cancelled the order with WD for the drive I had ordered which is in transit at present. I'm also getting the feeling that it is about to turn into one of those customer service horror stories.
Click to expand...

never had any issues with WD customer service tbh. dead drives replaced extremely quick etc and refunds straight away. however my bad experience was asking if new is SMR and they said they dont disclose this information
 
FL630 said:
To the layman with no knowledge of the finer details of HDDs, yet is building a NAS with 4TB Reds, should I be worried about this?
Click to expand...

If buying new try and make sure you get the EFRX model number, those ones should be fine to use.

The SMR EFAX ones will work, but they will just be a bit crippled compared to their EFRX counterparts. SMR drives are not as good on certain operations, so for the most part you may not notice anything, but things like rebuilding a disk in the raid group may be slower than normal, some people reported problems especially where they had a mixture of SMR and non-SMR drives in the same raid group.

If the EFAX ones are cheap, and you are mainly using for cold storage that gets read (i.e. films/tv shows) then probably fine to crack on, but I would not want to pay a premium for a drive that was slightly crippled.

From what people were saying, Seagate Ironwolf drives should be OK to use instead if you can get hold of them, or pay up for the larger Reds (8TB+) which apparently don't have the SMR issue.
 
This is something I’ve also become aware of in the last 2 or so weeks when looking for a failed drive replacement in a microserver, and will be keeping an eye out for in the future. It is a bit annoying that the manufacturers have not been clear on this so far.

In the end, I got the Toshiba N300 6Tb NAS drive (HDWN160) as a replacement – which as far as I can tell is a PMR/CMR. There is a slight mismatch in spindle speeds in the pool now (since the N300 is 7200rpm), and N300 draws slightly more power. But it seems to be running fine so far.

Before the drive failure, I had 6 x 6 TB WD Reds (WD60EFRX) PMR/CMR drives in a ZFS RAIDZ2 configuration – purchased in December 2015.

One drive failed approximately 2-2.5 weeks ago - the Raw Read Error Rate increased and there were increasing MPT SAS errors until 2 days later the drive dropped from the pool. (All drives are running off an IBM M1015 flashed to IT/HBA Mode).

I took the drive out and tried to run checks on another PC, and it failed to initialise.

I was about to order another WD Red 6TB as a replacement for delivery ASAP. However I noticed it was a newer model (WD60EFAX) with higher cache. I did the usual googling to see what is new and make sure there wouldn’t be any compatibility issues.

This is when I started noticing posts on Reddit and other locations, and that according to the Synology Product Compatibility List, this new EFAX drive is an SMR drive, and that there may be potential issues in me getting this replacement drive for a Zpool full of the old PMR/CMR drives, not to mention potential performance issues.

I wanted to replace the failed drive ASAP and have the pool resilver and return to a healthy state quickly. Also before I start using a new drive, I like to try to test them as much as possible with free tools available, so on a 6TB drive, that would add another 4 or so days before I can start re-silver.

(I usually do SMART Short & Long test, followed by BadBlocks destructive pass, and another SMART Short & Long test, and check various SMART counters e.g. Reallocated Sector Count etc.).

In the rush, I didn’t realise that you could still get WD60EFRX drives direct from WD, so got the N300. However, this is good to know for the future.
 
Randall8686 said:
never had any issues with WD customer service tbh. dead drives replaced extremely quick etc and refunds straight away. however my bad experience was asking if new is SMR and they said they dont disclose this information
Click to expand...

I've had some conflicting information from them regarding what to do already, Their websites says i just refuse delivery of the drive, but customer services have sent me through a shipping label with advice to accept delivery and haven't responded to my request for clarification.
 
Damn, they are EFAX drives. I wonder if it's worth returning, given it's a NAS for photo storage.


HungryHippos said:
If buying new try and make sure you get the EFRX model number, those ones should be fine to use.

The SMR EFAX ones will work, but they will just be a bit crippled compared to their EFRX counterparts. SMR drives are not as good on certain operations, so for the most part you may not notice anything, but things like rebuilding a disk in the raid group may be slower than normal, some people reported problems especially where they had a mixture of SMR and non-SMR drives in the same raid group.

If the EFAX ones are cheap, and you are mainly using for cold storage that gets read (i.e. films/tv shows) then probably fine to crack on, but I would not want to pay a premium for a drive that was slightly crippled.

From what people were saying, Seagate Ironwolf drives should be OK to use instead if you can get hold of them, or pay up for the larger Reds (8TB+) which apparently don't have the SMR issue.
Click to expand...
 
FL630 said:
Damn, they are EFAX drives. I wonder if it's worth returning, given it's a NAS for photo storage.
Click to expand...

Return them - enough people doing that and it will hopefully send a message to WD that this type of behaviour towards their customers has a cost.

I've been using WD and recommending reds for years, sadly I won't be doing that anymore :(
 
Armageus said:
Not just WD, it's also Seagate and Toshiba, so no safe choices:
Click to expand...
The key difference is that Seagate and Toshiba are only using SMR for their desktop drives, and at the end of the day it doesn't makes any sense to advertise if those drives are CMR/SMR/whatever because the people buying them won't care anyway. The purchasing mentality for budget single desktop drives basically goes "I need xGB, what is the cheapest xGB drive I can find?" performance is rarely a concern or they would be paying extra for a faster drive in the first place.
 
I have recently bought a WD 6TD Red. Just went and had a look at it turns out to be an EFAX one :-(
I have installed it in a Media PC (250GB SSD for Windows and a single 6TB HDD for Video).
I bought the WD Red because I wanted a quiet drive (I had a WD Black before that sounded like it was taking off).
What do you guys thin? - keep it or swap it for an EFRX (if I can get one or another make/model)?
 
Paul_RD said:
I have recently bought a WD 6TD Red. Just went and had a look at it turns out to be an EFAX one :-(
I have installed it in a Media PC (250GB SSD for Windows and a single 6TB HDD for Video).
I bought the WD Red because I wanted a quiet drive (I had a WD Black before that sounded like it was taking off).
What do you guys thin? - keep it or swap it for an EFRX (if I can get one or another make/model)?
Click to expand...

I'd definitely get a new one mate, SMR will hit your re-sale value later as well.

Speak to supplier but say you want to return it after learning of the SMR issue. EFRX is safe if you can find one, otherwise go 8TB or above and should be fine.

WD have confirmed which drives are impacted: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/wd-lists-all-drives-slower-smr-techNOLOGY
 
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