On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 03:13:11AM +0000, H. Hartzer wrote: > On Tue Sep 16, 2025 at 2:11 PM UTC, Crystal Kolipe wrote: > > With devices that are doing a read-modify-rewrite, if they read bad data as > > good during this process then it will write that bad data back and mark it > > as > > good. > > > > This can happen with flash-based devices, but also some magnetic drives, if > > they are configured to emulate 512 byte blocks on physical media formatted > > for > > 4K blocks. Also, a SMR drive that's shuffling data around in it's idle time > > could also corrupt data whilst in flight internally. > > Interesting. Are you saying that harddrives with 512 byte sectors might > be slightly less "error" prone?
No, I wasn't particularly making that claim, mainly because there are so many other factors involved that it doesn't make sense to focus on the fact that a 512e drive might be doing internal re-writing that a 512n drive wouldn't. That would be a tiny, tiny fraction of everything that contributes to drive reliability overall.
