Training SeDiv FUJITSU
April 5, 2024SeDiv Software
April 5, 2024SMR Hard Disk Repairs with SeDiv software
SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology is a method used in hard disk drives (HDDs) to increase data storage density. It works by overlapping the tracks of data, similar to shingles on a roof, allowing more data to be stored in the same physical space. However, it can result in slower write speeds compared to traditional HDDs due to the need for data to be rewritten in larger chunks.
Why did this technology come?
SMR technology was developed to address the increasing demand for higher data storage densities in hard disk drives (HDDs). As data storage needs continue to grow, especially in areas like cloud computing and big data analytics, technologies like SMR allow for more efficient use of physical storage space, ultimately leading to larger storage capacities and potentially lower costs per gigabyte.
Shingled magnetic recording (SMR) is a magnetic storage data recording technology used in hard disk drives (HDDs) to increase storage density and overall per-drive storage capacity. Conventional hard disk drives record data by writing non-overlapping magnetic tracks parallel to each other (conventional magnetic recording, CMR), while shingled recording writes new tracks that overlap part of the previously written magnetic track, leaving the previous track narrower and allowing higher track density. Thus, the tracks partially overlap similar to roof shingles. This approach was selected because, if the writing head is made too narrow, it cannot provide the very high fields required in the recording layer of the disk.
The overlapping-tracks architecture complicates the writing process, since writing to one track also overwrites an adjacent track. If adjacent tracks contain valid data, they must be rewritten as well. As a result, SMR drives are divided into many append-only (sequential) zones of overlapping tracks that need to be rewritten entirely when full, resembling flash blocks in solid-state drives. Device-managed SMR devices hide this complexity by managing it in the firmware, presenting an interface like any other hard disk. Other SMR devices are host-managed and depend on the operating system to know how to handle the drive, and only write sequentially to certain regions of the drive. While SMR drives can use DRAM, flash memory, and even a portion of their own platter reserved for use with CMR instead of SMR, as a cache to improve writing performance, continuous writing of large amount of data is noticeably slower than with CMR drives.
SeDiv specialized software can fix bad sectors of SMR hard disks well, other features of this software:
- Fix Bad sectors
- Repair 190 (T2)
- Support ARCO
- Support SF
- Support Auto Repair SMR
- Support Full SA an UA