Only device managed SMR is terrible. Host managed SMR is fine for data-hording if the savings in size/price are forwarded.
I'll believe it when I see it, though.
Unless you're trying to cram more data into a 2.5 inch drive, there seems to be zero upside to getting an SMR drive. They're priced about the same per byte despite "25% density improvements", and the high capacity 3.5 inch models on the market don't use it.
Sure they do. WD sold device managed SMR 3.5 disks without telling anyone. And then people noticed because of absolutely terrible raid re-silvering performance.
The consumer market is absolute trash for SMR devices, all the disadvantages with no benefit. But you can be sure that the enterprise sector gets host managed SMR drives at a better size/price ratio.
The biggest SMR drives I can buy are 6TB or 8TB.
The biggest non-SMR drive I can buy is 18TB.
https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library...
And yeah that's why I said on the market rather than 'in existence'.
Exactly. When you architect your tiered data storage solution to take advantage of technologies such as SMR/QLC it works great. This is absolutely not the case in consumer applications. Consumers will use QLC for their boot drives and fill their NAS boxes with SMR drives and have a horrible experience.