Question Should I avoid SMR hard drives for storing infrequently accessed video, roms, etc?

[SteveGrabowski]

I have a hard drive on my PC that I need to replace and have gotten all the data off of already. I read SMR drives have really slow write speed but mostly I just want something to store movies, roms for emulation, porn, etc where I don't care a whole lot about speed, especially write speed. Are there any downsides other than write speed for going with an SMR drive? Any reliability problems? Should I spend extra for a confirmed CMR NAS drive for something I'm not going to be using for a NAS, but in a PC? Sorry, I know crap about hard drives so figured I'd ask.

 

[Ranulf]

I think the main problem with SMR has been in raid arrays. If just using it as a single drive I doubt you'll have any problems.

 

[Tech Junky]

SMR Or CMR Hard Drive. Which One Is Better?

Have you ever wondered why that transfer rate drops suddenly when you are transferring large files? This is most likely because you are using an SMR (

aesonlabs.ca

.

 

[kschendel]

Your use case actually sounds like a good use for SMR drives: A read-mostly situation where you care more about space available than write speed.

I've not heard of any reliability issues from current SMR drives.

 

[sdifox]

I have a hard drive on my PC that I need to replace and have gotten all the data off of already. I read SMR drives have really slow write speed but mostly I just want something to store movies, roms for emulation, porn, etc where I don't care a whole lot about speed, especially write speed. Are there any downsides other than write speed for going with an SMR drive? Any reliability problems? Should I spend extra for a confirmed CMR NAS drive for something I'm not going to be using for a NAS, but in a PC? Sorry, I know crap about hard drives so figured I'd ask.

Just get a 14TB. AFAIK they are not shingled.

 

[Shmee]

I would avoid SMR drives period, partly on principle.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I bought two 2TB 7200 RPM WD "Blue" desktop HDDs recently @ Newegg. They were $45 ea. after promo discount.

Turns out they are SMR. Intended to be Steam game drives for budget builds. (OS on NVMe SSD.)