bob prohaska  wrote:
> But, for my Seagate, I found two sources, both from Seagate, that seem
> to disagree. The first:
> https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/cmr-smr-list/
> implies all 2.5" Barracuda drives use SMR
>
> The second
>
https://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/seagate-laptop-fam/barracud
a_25/en-us/docs/100807728a.pdf
> reports "perpendicular magnetic recording", which implies not SMR.

I think Seagate are specifically referring to drives currently on the market,
not past models.  It's also not unusual for manufacturers not to disclose
about USB drives, only SATA drives.  Previously SMR was only on very large
drives (8+GB) but recently it's started creeping into smaller drives (to
save costs, not that drive prices have come down much).

> I don't know which to believe.

If you have the drive plugged in, run:

smartctl -a /dev/sdX

(may have to install smartmontools package)
That should tell you the model number of the drive mechanism inside the USB
enclosure.  Then Google for that.

(it is possible smartctl may need an additional flag if your USB enclosure
needs special handling to pass SMART commands - see the help for some
examples)

Theo

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