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I've recently read about conventional vs shingled magnetic recording on HDDs, and noticed that HDD models offered by the popular HDD vendors (WD, Seagate, Toshiba) don't seem to indicate whether they're SMR or CMR.

How can I tell which kind of recording strategy an HDD uses (hopefully without having that HDD at my disposal)? If the indication is vendor-specific, I'll take such answers, if you have them for any of the popular vendors.

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  • This isn't an answer but a useful place to look would be somewhere like here or here - and there's different flavours of SMR . Density could be a clue but I have a pair of 14tb drives with lots of platters and helium that are CMR. I might bounty a reliable non-lookup option
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Jun 9 at 13:33
  • unix.stackexchange.com/a/352672/27961 also seems interesting
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Jun 9 at 13:35
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    While a drive implementing host-aware or host-managed zones probably implies that it is an SMR drive, it doesn't mean that not implementing any of those (i.e., the zones are "drive-managed") implies that it is a CMR drive. See zonedstorage.io/docs/introduction/smr
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Jun 9 at 17:30
  • Also sg3_utils is a set of SCSI utilities, whether any of them would work depends on the implementation of SCSI-ATA Translation Layer (SATL) in use (in addition to the support of corresponding ATA commands on the drive). When the drive is attached to a SATA/AHCI controller (well at least an onboard one), the SATL leveraged is implemented in the OS / kernel. When it's behind a USB/UAS bridge, it is implemented in the firmware bridge.
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Jun 9 at 17:32

1 Answer 1

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Option 1, lists or even manufacturer website spec sheets

There's sites that maintain lists, example: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/184vwtd/complete_list_of_smr_drives_as_of_112623/ or https://nascompares.com/answer/list-of-wd-cmr-and-smr-hard-drives-hdd/

Option 2, Use a SMART tool and look for TRIM support

There's more obvious tell-tale signs: SMR drives may support the SATA TRIM command:

enter image description here

It should be interpreted like so: If your spinning drive supports TRIM then it is a SMR drive, however absence of TRIM does not mean by definition it's not an SMR drive.

Option 3, Some tools can detect SMR drives without relying on databases or TRIM support

There's also less obvious drive parameters that can reveal a drive being SMR even in absence of TRIM support:

enter image description here

I suspect it may be examining the "general purpose log" or look for "Device Managed Zoned Capabilities" support.

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  • Some tools can detect SMR drives without relying on databases I bet a database is exactly what it relies on... if you see "General Purpose Log 0x30 has only 9 sectors, output skipped" then probably SMR too why?
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Jun 9 at 16:49
  • It does not rely on a database..
    – Joep van Steen
    Commented Jun 9 at 20:12

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