I doubt think these are even SATA, anyway. The last WD 2.5" external drive I opened up had its micro USB 3.x connector attached directly to the PCB, right where you’d expect an actual disk controller interface to be.
Seagate had some 5tb smr drives that I started picking up a few years back. Write are slow at sustained 8-12MB/s. But reads are fine. I wouldn’t expect these new ones to be any better.
Still not as good density wise in a 24 sff disk 2u server compared to a 12 disk lff 2u server with 18tb or 22tb disks.
Too bad it sounds like they’re SMR drives. Else it might be fun to shuck them for SFF servers.
I doubt think these are even SATA, anyway. The last WD 2.5" external drive I opened up had its micro USB 3.x connector attached directly to the PCB, right where you’d expect an actual disk controller interface to be.
Seagate had some 5tb smr drives that I started picking up a few years back. Write are slow at sustained 8-12MB/s. But reads are fine. I wouldn’t expect these new ones to be any better.
Still not as good density wise in a 24 sff disk 2u server compared to a 12 disk lff 2u server with 18tb or 22tb disks.