Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


#272240 16-Jun-2020 09:53
Send private message

I guess that I am not the only person to have hit the problem of secret-shingles on large hard drives.

 

For those who do not know, recently it turned out that some hard disk manufacturers have been selling drives using shingle technology without disclosing this.

 

Seagate Barracuda and Western Digital Red drives are included in this list but there are probably more drives and brands involved than this. (Some drives in those ranges are non-shingled but others are affected.)

 

This is a real problem for anyone inadvertently picking up such drives for use in systems such as RAID, ZFS or BTRFS.

 

So,what do you do if you need to buy new drives now?

 

It seems likely that there are going to be class action lawsuits against drive manufacturers and I expect one outcome of that will be that the defendant manufacturers will make some pledge never again to misdescribe products like this.

 

Until then, how does anyone know what are the safe options to purchase? I have seen some websites offering lists but they seem far from complete.

 

Are there any safe manufacturers or technologies? Is it safe to stick to SAS drives rather than SATA if you have the choice?

 

Any ideas?

 

 


View this topic in a long page with up to 500 replies per page Create new topic
 1 | 2
Behodar
9248 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2505614 16-Jun-2020 10:00
Send private message

WD is documenting CMR/SMR on the spec pages, e.g. https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-hdd


 
 
 

Shop MyHeritage and uncover your origins and find new relatives with a simple DNA test. (affiliate link).
lokhor
2858 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

  #2505616 16-Jun-2020 10:03
Send private message

From reading I believe the larger capacity 8TB+ drives are not using SMR





All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.


frankv
5582 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #2505625 16-Jun-2020 10:08
Send private message

Surely nowadays you would use a SSD for your volatile data? And only use a magnetic disk for backups or bulk data that is rarely overwritten (e.g. video or music archives)?

 

 

 

 




jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505637 16-Jun-2020 10:22
Send private message

lokhor:

 

From reading I believe the larger capacity 8TB+ drives are not using SMR

 

 

 

 

I have a pair of 8TB Barracudas which are shingled.

 

Also, a few WD Reds.

 

 


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505643 16-Jun-2020 10:27
Send private message

frankv:

 

Surely nowadays you would use a SSD for your volatile data? And only use a magnetic disk for backups or bulk data that is rarely overwritten (e.g. video or music archives)?

 

 

My bulk data is on a ZFS system. One Shingled drive can poison the whole array.

 

One such drive does not cause data loss but every time I to try to scrub the array, the system restarts the scrub when the shingled drives goes quite for twenty seconds or so.

 

 


Lias
5231 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2505656 16-Jun-2020 11:09
Send private message

frankv:

 

Surely nowadays you would use a SSD for your volatile data? And only use a magnetic disk for backups or bulk data that is rarely overwritten (e.g. video or music archives)?

 

 

If you want to pay to replace my home storage server's drives with SSD's, be my guest.. 

 

My guess is you could probably buy a house in an out of the way town for what it would cost.

 

 





I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.


Mark
1615 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505714 16-Jun-2020 13:18
Send private message

A reasonable rule of thumb for if a drive is shingled or not, is the amount of cache on the drive ... 256MB+ is a good sign it's a shingled drive.




  #2505776 16-Jun-2020 14:41
Send private message

For Seagate drives, there are a number of statements online indicating that the Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro ranges are not shingled.


kiwifidget
"Cookie"
2861 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #2505777 16-Jun-2020 14:45
Send private message

Pardon my ignorance, what is a shingled drive and why is that bad?

 

 





Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!


  #2505781 16-Jun-2020 15:01
Send private message

It is hardly new HDD technology... If the MTBF is good, Shingled HDDs should be ok...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording

 

 





Gordy

 

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505843 16-Jun-2020 15:32
Send private message

Gordy7:

 

It is hardly new HDD technology... If the MTBF is good, Shingled HDDs should be ok...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording

 

 

 

 

Not for something that uses some form of raid.

 

To quote from that wiki article:

 

"RAID resilvering tends to overload the cache, sending SMR drives into minutes-long pauses."

 

The raid system, whether hardware or software will assume that a drive that does not respond for several minutes has failed. The drive will be logically kicked out of the raid and you start to lose data redundancy.

 

 


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505846 16-Jun-2020 15:33
Send private message

Mark:

 

A reasonable rule of thumb for if a drive is shingled or not, is the amount of cache on the drive ... 256MB+ is a good sign it's a shingled drive.

 

 

That statement is believed to be good for certain models of WD Red drives. Unfortunately it is not a blanket rule.

 

 


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505850 16-Jun-2020 15:37
Send private message

allan:

 

For Seagate drives, there are a number of statements online indicating that the Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro ranges are not shingled.

 

 

Do you know if those statements are from third parties who have been able to test drives to determine whether or not they are shingled or if they are statements from a manufacturer which has been caught deceiving customers over a period of years about which drives are shingled?

 

 


jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek


  #2505856 16-Jun-2020 15:44
Send private message

kiwifidget:

 

Pardon my ignorance, what is a shingled drive and why is that bad?

 

 

 

 

This article answers both of your questions.

 

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

 

 


  #2505917 16-Jun-2020 16:10
Send private message

jpoc:

 

allan:

 

For Seagate drives, there are a number of statements online indicating that the Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro ranges are not shingled.

 

 

Do you know if those statements are from third parties who have been able to test drives to determine whether or not they are shingled or if they are statements from a manufacturer which has been caught deceiving customers over a period of years about which drives are shingled? 

 

A number of those do appear to be restatements of content from Seagate themsleves, but Synology seem to have done some independent certification as to what will work with their NAS devices - https://www.synology.com/en-global/compatibility?search_by=products&model=DS918%2B&category=hdds_no_ssd_trim&filter_brand=Seagate&p=1


 1 | 2
View this topic in a long page with up to 500 replies per page Create new topic





News and reviews »

New Air Traffic Management Platform and Resilient Buildings a Milestone for Airways
Posted 6-Dec-2023 05:00


Logitech G Launches New Flagship Console Wireless Gaming Headset Astro A50 X
Posted 5-Dec-2023 21:00


NordVPN Helps Users Protect Themselves From Vulnerable Apps
Posted 5-Dec-2023 14:27


First-of-its-Kind Flight Trials Integrate Uncrewed Aircraft Into Controlled Airspace
Posted 5-Dec-2023 13:59


Prodigi Technology Services Announces Strategic Acquisition of Conex
Posted 4-Dec-2023 09:33


Samsung Announces Galaxy AI
Posted 28-Nov-2023 14:48


Epson Launches EH-LS650 Ultra Short Throw Smart Streaming Laser Projector
Posted 28-Nov-2023 14:38


Fitbit Charge 6 Review 
Posted 27-Nov-2023 16:21


Cisco Launches New Research Highlighting Gap in Preparedness for AI
Posted 23-Nov-2023 15:50


Seagate Takes Block Storage System to New Heights Reaching 2.5 PB
Posted 23-Nov-2023 15:45


Seagate Nytro 4350 NVMe SSD Delivers Consistent Application Performance and High QoS to Data Centers
Posted 23-Nov-2023 15:38


Amazon Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd Generation) Review
Posted 14-Nov-2023 16:17


Over half of New Zealand adults surveyed concerned about AI shopping scams
Posted 3-Nov-2023 10:42


Super Mario Bros. Wonder Launches on Nintendo Switch
Posted 24-Oct-2023 10:56


Google Releases Nest WiFi Pro in New Zealand
Posted 24-Oct-2023 10:18









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.







GoodSync is the easiest file sync and backup for Windows and Mac