[matrix_overload]

I had that problem as well (8TB Seagate). It would write some data, then get completely stuck to the point where Windows would report an I/O error. So I wrote a small tool that writes data in smaller chunks, monitors the write speed and allows throttling it if needed.

Weirdly enough, just using the tool instead of copying files with Explorer somehow stopped the weird hanging from happening, even without having to enable the actual throttling. Probably some bug somewhere along the driver/firmware stack triggered by the write block sizes.

Overall, I wish the drive vendors would expose some API to directly manage the SMR/CMR areas via software, just like the FLASH memory chips do. That would make the job of appending new backups + overwriting the old ones actually manageable with predictable and consistent timing.

[timschmidt]

It also seems like a potential opportunity for hybrid flash hard drives, where the flash could take over the role of the CMR buffer region and reduce the amount of back-and-forth required of the drive's rw head, which should considerably increase performance.

[WithinReason]

This could even happen is SW with separate drives.

[mrkstu]

I assume Apple’s ‘Fusion’ drive tech is still active in their OS for backwards compatibility. It’d be interesting to try it on one of these drives.

[mike_hearn]

It's probably sensitive to exactly how the file is opened. SMR drives need the file to be append only. If Explorer isn't communicating to the OS that it's going to do that properly for whatever reason, the driver would kick the writes back to the random access area which would slow it down.

SMR drives aren't designed for having data shuttled between areas like that. They're meant to be used such that you write in long streams directly to the shingled areas. The slowdowns are clearly due to the abstraction mismatch getting in the way.

[wtallis]

> Overall, I wish the drive vendors would expose some API to directly manage the SMR/CMR areas via software, just like the FLASH memory chips do.

They do, on drive models that are sold to the customers large enough to have the resources to re-write their storage stack to handle zoned block devices. The drives sold at retail will continue to pretend to be ordinary random-access block devices for the sake of backwards compatibility.

[doublepg23]

Are you sure the drive wasn't just DOA?

[matrix_overload]

Got 2 of those. Same behavior, otherwise both work just fine.