Is it possible to make host-managed SMR work on a standard desktop PC?

[Bert]

I acquired some HGST 10TB host managed SMR drives. I am able to access these drives and verify that they are recognized as host managed block device. I am using BTRFS to format them but format is failing with an I/O error. There is no obvious error in dmesg.

With very few online guides here, I am stuck. It is not clear whether the drives are bad, with a very custom firmware or if I am doing something wrong. The drives are attached to intel onboard sata controller under AHCI configuration so host managed SMR should work with btrfs.

I just want to learn if anyone had an experience with host managed SMR and how made it work.

 

[bugmen0t]

I don't have any experience, but maybe this might help you?

Zoned Storage | Zoned Storage

Zoned Storage Documentation and Resources

zonedstorage.io

 

[Bert]

I fixed the issue by using f2fs after installing libz

GitHub - westerndigitalcorporation/libzbc: ZBC device manipulation library. When submitting a bug report, PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OR INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO DRIVES THAT ARE VENDOR SAMPLES OR NOT PUBLICLY AVAILABLE.

ZBC device manipulation library. When submitting a bug report, PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OR INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO DRIVES THAT ARE VENDOR SAMPLES OR NOT PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. - w...

github.com

For some reason btrfs is still giving an error:

sudo mkfs.btrfs -O zoned -d single -m single /dev/sdb -f
btrfs-progs v5.16.2
See btrfs Wiki for more information.

ERROR: zoned: ioctl BLKREPORTZONE failed (Input/output error)

 

[Bert]

I fixed all these issues:

1.You need to use a recent SAS card with HM-SMR support.
2. Btrfs is supported in ubuntu 23.10.

I must say though BTRFS is buggy for HM-SMR and F2FF takes extra 110GB on a 10TB drive. Go figure