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Western Digital 4TB WD Red NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - $85 + Free shipping w/ Prime $84.99

$84.99
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Amazon.com has Western Digital 4TB WD Red NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD for $84.99 with free Prime shipping.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083XVY99B/


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083XVY99B/
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Model: Western Digital Red WD40EFAX 4 TB Hard Drive - 3.5" Internal - SATA (SATA/600) - Storage System Device Supported - 5400rpm - 180 TB TBW - 3 Year Warra

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Post Date Sold By Sale Price Activity
04/29/23Newegg$65.99
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06/21/22Amazon$69.99
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01/07/22Newegg$59.99
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12/27/21Newegg$60
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12/05/21Amazon$63.99
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12/04/21Amazon$40
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11/25/21Newegg$64
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11/17/21Newegg$66
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11/03/21Amazon$79.99
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10/14/21Newegg$74.99
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09/07/21Newegg$84.99
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09/02/21Newegg$70
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01/30/21Newegg$84.99
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Joined Jul 2014
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,717 Posts
772 Reputation
b.arms
08-23-2021 at 08:34 AM.
08-23-2021 at 08:34 AM.
For those wondering, this is SMR
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Joined May 2019
Corporate Banana
> bubble2 876 Posts
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oreganotrail
08-23-2021 at 12:13 PM.
08-23-2021 at 12:13 PM.
Quote from b.arms :
For those wondering, this is SMR

Does that mean I get another 2 dollars for that class action if I buy it and become outraged?
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Joined Jun 2013
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> bubble2 17 Posts
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jonnfb516
08-23-2021 at 12:14 PM.
08-23-2021 at 12:14 PM.
Quote from b.arms :
For those wondering, this is SMR

Please remind me, SMR > OR < CMR
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Joined May 2017
L4: Apprentice
> bubble2 335 Posts
wdslkd
08-23-2021 at 12:25 PM.
08-23-2021 at 12:25 PM.
Quote from jonnfb516 :
Please remind me, SMR > OR < CMR
Right, I had to google myself, because I can never remember. So, the conventional wisdom is CMR better than SMR.

These are "WD Red" and are SMR.
The "WD Red Plus" are the better and CMR.
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Joined Jun 2013
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> bubble2 17 Posts
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jonnfb516
08-23-2021 at 12:26 PM.
08-23-2021 at 12:26 PM.
Quote from wdslkd :
Right, I had to google myself, because I can never remember. So, the conventional wisdom is CMR better than SMR.

These are "WD Red" and are SMR.
The "WD Red Plus" are the better and CMR.

You rock, was actually about to edit. Thank you.
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Joined Jun 2014
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> bubble2 16 Posts
4th.on.3rd
08-23-2021 at 02:21 PM.
08-23-2021 at 02:21 PM.
Quote from wdslkd :
Right, I had to google myself, because I can never remember. So, the conventional wisdom is CMR better than SMR.

These are "WD Red" and are SMR.
The "WD Red Plus" are the better and CMR.
WD has really muddied the waters, s it's no longer so straightforward. There are older WD Red (the newer are now named 'Plus') that are CMR, like the EFRX series. There are also WD Blue (my gotos for ZFS NAS) that are CMR, like the EZRZ and EZAZ series.
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Joined Sep 2007
L8: Grand Teacher
> bubble2 3,946 Posts
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Interface
08-23-2021 at 02:32 PM.
08-23-2021 at 02:32 PM.
Consumer grade mechanical hard drives by Seagate and Western Digital should be avoided if you care about your data. Get an enterprise hard drive filled with helium, it will last you a very long time.

https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultra...0856WZT3B/

HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB 64MB Cache 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5inch Internal Hard Drive (for NAS, Desktop PC/Mac, Surveillance Storage, CCTV DVR) - 5 Year Warranty (Renewed)
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Joined Jun 2014
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> bubble2 16 Posts
4th.on.3rd
08-23-2021 at 07:53 PM.
08-23-2021 at 07:53 PM.
Quote from Interface :
Consumer grade mechanical hard drives by Seagate and Western Digital should be avoided if you care about your data. Get an enterprise hard drive filled with helium, it will last you a very long time.

https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultra...0856WZT3B/

HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB 64MB Cache 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5inch Internal Hard Drive (for NAS, Desktop PC/Mac, Surveillance Storage, CCTV DVR) - 5 Year Warranty (Renewed)
That's one way to go if you like to take chances on "renewed" HDs, and you don't care about noise. I've been there already. I got four, and each of them had 5 years on them, and all four failed within a month. BTW, all from the same source as you linked to (but through Newegg), and the guy refunded the money, no questions asked. At least that, but I'm not going to do that again.

On the other hand:

Code:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Blue Device Model: WDC WD30EZRZ-00WN9B0
Serial Number: xxxxxxx
Device Id: 5 0014ee 20cab49f7
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity: 3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Mon Aug 23 19:06:49 2021 PDT
Code:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   172   172   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       8358
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       171
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   043   043   000    Old_age   Always       -       41689
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       153
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       60
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   077   077   000    Old_age   Always       -       370489
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   116   103   000    Old_age   Always       -       36
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
ZFS file system, ECC system memory, light use, ~4.5 years and still going strong. I have yet to have one fail on me, though I always keep a spare and replace when I'm starting to get errors. I've been doing it for years (decades really). Just got two more 4TB EZAX @ $75 ea.
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Last edited by 4th.on.3rd August 23, 2021 at 07:58 PM.
Joined Jul 2014
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,717 Posts
772 Reputation
b.arms
08-24-2021 at 07:35 AM.

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank b.arms

08-24-2021 at 07:35 AM.
Quote from jonnfb516 :
Please remind me, SMR > OR < CMR
C stands for "Conventional"
S stands for "Shingled"
MR means "Magnetic Recording"

In most (arguably all) applications, CMR is best.
Shingled (SMR) has the data overlapping, like a shingle. While this doesn't really affect reading the data, writing new data means all of the overlapping data has to be moved out of the way first. and all of the overlapping data on top of that has to be moved as well... and so on...

It's fine for archival purposes, write once and store as a backup, etc... but for everyday use, SMR is terrible. In a NAS it's even worse, particularly one that uses ZFS. It can make a RAID array that would usually take 12 hours or so to rebuild with a CMR drive take several weeks on an SMR drive. That is what made these drives so maddening. SMR is the worst performing drive you could put in a modern NAS, yet that's what WD labelled them for without telling anyone they did it.
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Joined Jun 2013
New User
> bubble2 17 Posts
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jonnfb516
08-24-2021 at 07:43 AM.
08-24-2021 at 07:43 AM.
Quote from b.arms :
C stands for "Conventional"
S stands for "Shingled"
MR means "Magnetic Recording"

In most (arguably all) applications, CMR is best.
Shingled (SMR) has the data overlapping, like a shingle. While this doesn't really affect reading the data, writing new data means all of the overlapping data has to be moved out of the way first. and all of the overlapping data on top of that has to be moved as well... and so on...

It's fine for archival purposes, write once and store as a backup, etc... but for everyday use, SMR is terrible. In a NAS it's even worse, particularly one that uses ZFS. It can make a RAID array that would usually take 12 hours or so to rebuild with a CMR drive take several weeks on an SMR drive. That is what made these drives so maddening. SMR is the worst performing drive you could put in a modern NAS, yet that's what WD labelled them for without telling anyone they did it.

Thank you for the explanation. Never knew that's how it worked or that they did it without telling anyone.

If I am putting some photos on a backup that I will probably not touch again for awhile, this will probably be fine, correct? Otherwise get the "plus".
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Joined Jul 2014
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,717 Posts
772 Reputation
b.arms
08-24-2021 at 08:01 AM.
08-24-2021 at 08:01 AM.
Quote from jonnfb516 :
Thank you for the explanation. Never knew that's how it worked or that they did it without telling anyone.

If I am putting some photos on a backup that I will probably not touch again for awhile, this will probably be fine, correct? Otherwise get the "plus".
Personally, I just stay away from SMR altogether. I tend to swap my drives around and repurpose them though.

As far as I know, there's no benefit to the end user to use SMR, it only benefits the manufacturer because they can squeeze about 30% more data on to each platter.

I would use those reconditioned 4TB Ultrastars that someone linked in this thread long before buying SMR drives. That's just a personal preference I suppose, but HGST makes insanely reliable drives, especially their enterprise line. Sucks that WD bought them.

Off Topic Nostalgia Time:
It's funny that back in the day, Hitachi bought IBM's Hard Drive division, but didn't change the model names at all. Anyone who knew anything about computers knew that IBM's consumer drives "DeskStar" had been referred to as "DeathStar" for several years at that point due to their horrible reliability. I learned in the mid 2000's that Hitachi "DeskStars" were some of the most reliable drives you could get, yet they could often be found cheap because people still had that model name association.

After the flood in Thailand that ground WD to a crawl and caused the market to get desperate, everyone else soon learned Hitachi drives were awesome too. and the "Deathstar" moniker was all but forgotten.
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Joined Jul 2014
L7: Teacher
> bubble2 2,717 Posts
772 Reputation
b.arms
08-24-2021 at 08:34 AM.
08-24-2021 at 08:34 AM.
Quote from 4th.on.3rd :
That's one way to go if you like to take chances on "renewed" HDs, and you don't care about noise. I've been there already. I got four, and each of them had 5 years on them, and all four failed within a month. BTW, all from the same source as you linked to (but through Newegg), and the guy refunded the money, no questions asked. At least that, but I'm not going to do that again.

ZFS file system, ECC system memory, light use, ~4.5 years and still going strong. I have yet to have one fail on me, though I always keep a spare and replace when I'm starting to get errors. I've been doing it for years (decades really). Just got two more 4TB EZAX @ $75 ea.
I've had hit-or-miss luck with second-hand drives, but I always run a full battery of tests using Seatools before putting data on any newly purchased HDD I get. The faulty drives have always shown themselves during the long generic test or sooner, and I'll send the drive back as "DOA".

That goes for new drives as well, and I've found my share of soon-to-be-failing drives by just letting those long tests run. Send back as DOA within the 30-day return period, never have to deal with the manufacturers or lose any data.
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Joined Nov 2012
L1: Learner
> bubble2 21 Posts
10 Reputation
MikeThor
08-24-2021 at 05:29 PM.
08-24-2021 at 05:29 PM.
Quote from Interface :
Consumer grade mechanical hard drives by Seagate and Western Digital should be avoided if you care about your data. Get an enterprise hard drive filled with helium, it will last you a very long time.

https://www.amazon.com/HGST-Ultra...0856WZT3B/

HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB 64MB Cache 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5inch Internal Hard Drive (for NAS, Desktop PC/Mac, Surveillance Storage, CCTV DVR) - 5 Year Warranty (Renewed)

I had one take a shit on me after 4 years. I was running it in RAID 1 though because it was sentimental.
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Joined Sep 2007
L8: Grand Teacher
> bubble2 3,946 Posts
1,689 Reputation
Interface
08-24-2021 at 11:23 PM.
08-24-2021 at 11:23 PM.
Quote from MikeThor :
I had one take a shit on me after 4 years. I was running it in RAID 1 though because it was sentimental.
So you are complaining after 4-years, your internal hard drive quit on you. Most of the crap sold to consumers doesn't even last that long.
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