Western Digital Investigates WD Blue and Red SMR Drive Failures
Western Digital is investigating reports of hardware failures in some of its older hard drives that use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology.
The investigation comes after several European data recovery companies noticed unusually high failure rates in certain WD Blue and WD Red models released around 2020.
Published by Hilbert Hagedoorn on 2025-10-30 18:08.
SMR drives have always been a questionable fit for heavy workloads such as RAID or ZFS arrays, as they constantly rewrite data, pushing the technology beyond its ideal use case.
Over time, the extra mechanical movement can cause wear and tear on the read/write heads and platters, resulting in performance slowdowns or outright drive failure.
- Common symptoms include clicking or grinding noises
- Longer file access times
- Trouble reading partitions
This trade-off has always made SMR drives a questionable fit for heavy workloads such as RAID or ZFS arrays.
Author's summary: Western Digital investigates SMR drive failures.
More News
- Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for Oct. 31 #403
- Marin Voice: Bike coalition expresses support for SMART train initiative
- Marin Athletic Foundation set to induct 10 into Hall
- Core Scientific shareholders dismiss $9B CoreWeave deal over valuation worries - SiliconANGLE
- Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers for Oct. 31 #873