SMR for cold storage ?

[farrington]

As a home user, I am looking to migrate old archived data to a new and larger cold storage medium, as HDD sizes have crept up and costs reduced. However, the issue of CMR v SMR cropped up and I am left unsure, even after reading articles on the issue, whether I should use SMR or not ?

I understand the volume nature of the HDD business model, and why SMR is so prevalent as a result. I also understand that SMR is not best suited to a RAID setup, but that doesn't affect my needs as I just need to plug it in every so often, so I don't think SMR is an issue for my needs ?

I only need to have a backup of backup, which would remain disconnected much of the time.

For my needs I think that 12TB is a good price point in the 2021 domestic market; specifically the IronWolf (ST12000NE0008) as the Baracuda Pro (ST12000DM0007) would likely have been in warehouse storage for a couple of years already.

Any thoughts ?

[Lardman]

Id be less concerned about SMR and more about putting all your eggs in one basket, one knock and that 12TB is going to need an expensive recovery.

If you only need 12TB Id be looking around for a second hand NAS with 4x4TB in with raid 5.

[farrington]

I am not going to need a RAID system. I am looking for cold storage. And this HDD would be a backup of a backup.

[Lardman]

SMR is a purely a budget consideration, if you don't need to use it don't.

[farrington]

Can you recommend a CMR HDD over 10TB ?

[Lardman]

If you're essentially treating it a disposable storage there's really nothing in it between the brands. I may lean towards a WD red pro or the ironwolf pro. With a single unit you're going to be very unlucky to get a faulty drive or mechanical failure from any brand. If it dies, it's likely going to be a power event or handling that causes it and if the data is just a backup a new replacement drive is cheap enough.

At least you should get a good 150Mb/s+ copy speed, some of the SMR speeds are shocking. Imagine trying to copy 12TB at 10Mb/sec

[farrington]

The following list on Seagate's site seems to denote which HDD are CMR and SMR:

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/internal- ... -smr-list/


I'm just confirming now as Amazon can have HDD sitting on their warehouse shelves for a number of years before shipment and the date of manufacture is important, as well as the warranty (the "Pro" series of the IronWolf offers three more than the standard).

[northwind]

Can you recommend a CMR HDD over 10TB ?

There are plenty.

For instance,

12TB:
WD120EFAX-*UNT*
WD120EMAZ-*BLF*
WD121PURZ-*GUC*
WD120EMFZ-*A6J*

14TB:
WD140EDFZ-*A0V*
WD140EMFZ-*A0W*

all these are He drives, manufactured by HGST.

[farrington]

WD's seem to have terrible reviews on Amazon, and that's if they have any at all.

The Seagate's by comparison are a lot better received.

[fzabkar]

Can you recommend a CMR HDD over 10TB ?

https://hddscan.com/blog/2020/hdd-wd-smr.html

[northwind]

WD's seem to have terrible reviews on Amazon, and that's if they have any at all.

The Seagate's by comparison are a lot better received.

Again, these are HGST drives, not WD.

Personally, I'd rather get hit by a truck than buy Seagate drives, by the way.

[Lardman]

Personally, I'd rather get hit by a truck than buy Seagate drives, by the way.

The Op is just looking for validation of a decision he has already made rather than seeking genuine advice, whatever he purchases will be fine until it's not. Id be checking out the T&C's for making a warranty claim rather than reading amazon reviews.

As the data stored isn't going to be important it's not likely it's going to end up with one of us to recover.

[farrington]

I only settled on Seagate because of the reviews from other manufacturers. Stumbling across the SMR issue after this initial research was just the next step in choosing the HDD.

I remember HGST (G-Drives) used to have a high reputation, but who knows what WD have done to it ?

I opened for the Pro model because of the five year warranty, over the two for the standard model.

This is a backup of a backup, so its not like I'm just taking the first thing that comes along. Too many cautious reviews make me think twice about the competition.