XPost: aus.computers   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Sat, 12/27/2025 6:54 AM, Axel wrote:   
      
   >   
   > thanks for this. I've been checking on drives too myself. problem is not   
   > all makes/models are stocked by computer shops, and I don't want to spend a   
   lot.   
   > I have been re-purposing what I have here to free up a 1Tb drive, but if I   
   need   
   > to buy a new drive, do you think SMR would be Ok for desktop use, and/or   
   > data storage, or should I only buy CMR?   
      
   I consider the SMR to be fine for sequential backups.   
      
   1) I would not intentionally buy SMR.   
      
      The first generation, as reviewed on Anandtech, dropped to as low as   
      25MB/sec or so. The SMR drive caching policy is a lot better now than   
      it was back then, but still, writing seven tracks and having to do   
      read-modify-write to change a sector within the seven track cluster,   
      that is just a "crazy thing to do". For me, buying an SMR is like   
      agreeing to buy a car with square wheels on it.   
      
   2) If I had to buy one SMR, I would buy two of them and alternate   
      the storage on them. Or otherwise use a redundant storage   
      pattern (put valuable things on two of the drives).   
      
   3) With a CMR drive, I am less fearful of the unknown. But HDD are still HDD.   
      They're not SSD or NVMe, so you know their limits. If you write a program   
      to shake the head assembly back and forth, 24 hours a day, the arm lasts   
      about a year doing that (for any HDD). Most desktop usage patterns are   
      nowhere near that bad. On a desktop there are long periods of idleness.   
      
   And when I refer to used drives from the Chia era, the hard drives   
   were abused to support this project. At one time, this causes a shortage   
   of hard drives, because the manufacturing could not keep up with demand.   
   Later, the Chia People were dumping the worn drives and trying to fool people   
   into thinking they were new drives. The Chia interval caused my computer store   
   to lose confidence in the HDD market (they were losing money on "buying high,   
   selling low"), and one day here, they even had an   
   inventory level of *zero* HDD. Today, they have some again.   
      
      ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia_Network       # Abuse HDD for money )   
      
     Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)