WD WD capitulates (somewhat) ... CMR/SMR

[Telos]

In addition to taking customer and partner feedback seriously, we conduct in-house testing on the WD Red family of drives for compatibility, performance, endurance and other factors.

blah, blah, blah...

The WD Red Family
Here’s a breakdown of our products for NAS use-cases:

• Our current device-managed shingled magnetic recording (DMSMR) (2TB, 3TB, 4TB, and 6TB) WD Red series will be the choice for the majority of NAS owners whose demands are lighter SOHO workloads.

• WD Red Plus is the new name for conventional magnetic recording (CMR)-based NAS drives in the WD Red family, including all capacities from 1TB to 14TB. These will be the choice for those whose applications require more write-intensive SMB workloads such as ZFS. WD Red Plus in 2TB, 3TB, 4TB and 6TB capacities will be available soon.

• Our WD Red Pro (CMR 2TB to 14TB) series for the highest-intensity usage remains the same.

Source

Prediction: CMR prices will increase.

 

[fredbert]

While this is good news, i.e. there'll be published information so people can make an informed choice, this still has a potential problem for new users that aren't aware of the difference between Red 2-6TB and Red Plus 2-6TB.

So what happens when they want to expand their 4-bay NAS that started with two WD 4TB and add two 8TB? Or some such scenario. We had this with the recent pre-Plus move but it still exists. I think they should keep the original WD Red as CMR and make a new WD <new colour> for network file sharing and backup (i.e. not using a NAS as a multi-purpose server).

 

[Telos]

WD "Red" is the "New Coke", and like New Coke, informed users will turn from this horrid concoction until the "Original Coke", a.k.a., Red Plus dominates WD's NAS drives.