Data storage enthusiasts who inadvertently bought SMR HDDs from Western Digital and have encountered performance and/or RAID issues might be out of luck, but the company is making sure that confusion never happens again by publishing which recording technologies (i.e., SMR, CMR) its internal client drives actually use.
For peace of mind, users may want to avoid WD Red WD20EFAX (2 TB), WD30EFAX (3 TB), WD40EFAX (4 TB), and WD60EFAX (6 TB), all of which utilize SMR technology. The same goes for WD Blue WD20EZAZ (2 TB), WD60EZAZ (6 TB), WD10SPZX (1 TB), and WD20SPZX (2 TB). There’s also one WD Black drive that uses SMR – the 1 TB WD10SPSX.
“The past week has been eventful, to say the least,” wrote Western Digital. “As a team, it was important that we listened carefully and understood your feedback about our WD Red NAS drives, specifically how we communicated which recording technologies are used. Your concerns were heard loud and clear.”
“We’re committed to providing the information that can help make an informed buying decision for as many uses as possible. Thank you for letting us know how we can do better. We will update our marketing materials, as well as provide more information about SMR technology, including benchmarks and ideal use cases.”
Western Digital is urging those with problematic drives to call the company, but it isn’t clear whether it’s offering replacements. “We will have options for you,” it said.