[mythtv-users] 8T Seagate Archive: my experience

[Warpme]

Hi,
Few weeks ago I decide to buy 8T Seagate Archive drive.
I saw some ppl expressed to hear my experience with SMR based HDD, so 
here it goes:
Shortly:
1.forget about using this drive as R/W media. Current implementation 
(mainly firmware) allows to OS reboot-free usage of this drive only as 
write once, read many.
2.first write is fast (95-130MB/s). Read is fast (100-140MB/s).
3.overwriting/rewriting files (=rewriting shingled tracks) is avg 45-55MB/s.
4.during overwriting/rewriting there are moments where drive "stalls" 
for few sec with 0MB/s writing speed.

Ad1: Current firmware sometimes stalls SATA handshake (I believe during 
rewriting shingled tracks).
This stalls are long enough to make linux kernel sending multiple error 
messages about SATA errors. In this cases frequently kernel also cancels 
NCQ queue.
During 7T of write/read operations I had 3 situations when SATA link was 
marked down by kernel. Shortly after that XFS journal reports set of 
errors and this resulting in shutdown XFS filesystem.
Restoring SATA to working state needs HW to reboot!
Fortunately XFS repair not discover any errors.

Summarizing: for me this drive is simple unfinished product and I 
STRONGLY suggest NOT buying this model.