We tested WD Red SMR v CMR drives to see if there was indeed a significant impact with the change. We found SMR can put data at risk 13-16x longer than CMR //
The performance results achieved by the WD Red WD40EFAX surprised me; my only personal experience with SMR drives prior to this point was with Seagate’s Archive line. Based on my time with those drives, I was expecting much poorer results. Instead, individually the WD Red SMR drives Are essentially functional. They work aggressively in the background to mitigate their own limitations. The performance of the drive seemed to recover relatively quickly if given even brief periods of inactivity. For single drive installations, the WD40EFAX will likely function without issue.
However, the WD40EFAX is not a consumer desktop-focused drive. Instead, it is a WD Red drive with NAS branding all over it. When that NAS readiness was put to the test the drive performed spectacularly badly. The RAIDZ results were so poor that, in my mind, they overshadow the otherwise decent performance of the drive. //
The WD40EFAX is demonstrably a worse drive than the CMR based WD40EFRX, and assuming that you have a choice in your purchase the CMR drive is the superior product. Given the significant performance and capability differential between the CMR WD Red and the SMR model, they should be different brands or lines rather than just product numbers. In online product catalogs keeping the same branding means that it shows as a “newer model” at many retailers. Many will simply purchase the newer model expecting it to be better as previous generations have been. That is not a recipe for success.
