My Passport - CMR or SMR?

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi.

Over the last few months, I have been using a “new” 5TB WD MyPassPort 2.5" external drive.

This drive is used for all manner of daily activity; primarily photo editing.

Compared to previous drives I have used. . .this drive is generally very slow to respond to read requests.

I have heard a rumor that all the 2.5" MyPassports are now SMR drives. . . not CMR.
Can anyone confirm this?

If this drive is SMR. . . I don’t want to fool around - - -I will replace it promptly. If I can’t get proper CMR 2.5 external drives from anywhere. . . not sure what I will do. . . . I really do want a 5TB portable drive capability… . and really don’t want the expense and hassle of multiple 1TB or 2TB Portable SSDs (NOTE: I have not ruled this path out of the question.)

2

probably.

link below at the bottom of this list …

WD My Passport drives – SMR

WDBPKJ0050 and other capacities and colours

Well, it seems the way all manufacturers are going (not just WD) … so, you probably won’t have much say/choice in the matter.

3

ah crud. . . .I suspected this.

I now have to come up with a new working solution. . . . . shame. . .the CMR HDD’s worked just fine.

Grrrrrr. I suspect this solution will involve a 2TB SSD. . .twice the cost for 1/2 the capacity.
Grrrrr. . . you know the SMR technology is a winner when NOONE admits to actually using it. Grrrrr. . .

4

Lots of NAS users are unhappy as shingled disks do not resilver properly etc.

I have resorted to using datacenter helium filled disks to get some capacity and reliability