On Sunday, 10 May 2020 21:52:54 BST antlists wrote:
> On 10/05/2020 20:11, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >> I did find a WD Red 8TB drive.  It costs a good bit more.  It's a good
> >> deal but still costs more.  I'm going to keep looking.  Eventually I'll
> >> either spend the money on the drive or find a really good deal.  My home
> >> directory is at 69% so I got some time left.  Of course, my collection
> >> is still growing. o_O
> > 
> > In theory the 8TB reds are SMR-free.
> 
> I thought I first found it on this list - wasn't it reported that the
> 1TB and 8TB were still CMR but everything between was now SMR? Pretty
> naff since the SMR drives all refuse to add to a raid array, despite
> being advertised as "for NAS and RAID". Under UK law that would be a
> slam dunk RMA as "unfit for purpose".
> 
> Try the "Red Pro", which apparently are still all CMR. To the best of my
> knowledge the Seagate Ironwolves are still SMR-free, and there's also
> the Ironwolf Pros.
> 
> I've got two Ironwolves, but they're 2018-vintage. I think they're Red
> equivalents.
> 
> Cheers,
> Wol

An interesting article mentioning WD Red NAS drives which may actually be SMRs 
and how latency increases when cached writes need to be transferred into SMR 
blocks.

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/shingled-drives-have-non-shingled-zones-for-caching-writes/