This resource was originally created by user: Basil Hendroff on the TrueNAS Community Forums Archive. Please DM this account or comment in this thread to claim it.
SMR technology is a timebomb waiting to go off in a ZFS file system. This quote from Slashdot…
At absolute best, SMR disks underperform significantly in comparison to CMR disks; at their worst, they can fall flat on their face so badly that they may be mistakenly detected as failed hardware.
Want to know more? Start with this community thread Update: WD Red SMR Drive Compatibility with ZFS
TrueCommand has a built-in check for known WD SMR drives on connected TrueNAS servers. However, if you don’t use TrueCommand, you can still use this bash script to help you identify SMR drives. The script doesn’t limit checks just to the WD NAS range of drives (RED), but extends this to any WD SMR drive listed in its database (BLUE, BLACK, etc.).
The latest version identifies known Seagate, Toshiba and WD Ultrastar (formerly HGST) SMR drives as well.
As the database of SMR drives is updated whenever a new SMR drive is identified, always download and run the latest version of this script when checking your TrueNAS drives.