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Dale, |
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"Dale" <rdalek1967@×××××.com>, 06.01.2020, 09:29: |
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> Also, when looking for a drive to buy, what should one look at to see if |
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> it is a SMR drive? While it may be OK for my backups, I'd like to avoid |
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> them on the drives inside my rig that are used for the OS or /home. I |
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> dunno, just a gut thing. |
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it's not "just a gut thing". SMR drives are not meant for random |
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access writing; they write like a tape and read like a disk. |
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A while ago, one of my clients bought one of those things |
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to replace an older failing backup drive. The next night, the |
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backup took hours instead of minutes. No knowing what was inside |
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the box, I did some measurements and discovered that the first |
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few files were written quickly, then things got really slow, |
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with the rsync process waiting (state "D") for the drive to |
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finish. |
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tar-based backups went much quicker, though, which matches the |
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expected behaviour of SMR drives; the drive did not need to rewrite |
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many large areas due to many small changes, instead it only had to |
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write one large area due to one large change. |
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s. |
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