# SMR Hard Drives to Avoid for NAS: Models and Better Choices

> Avoid choosing a known SMR drive for a new write-heavy NAS, RAID or ZFS array when a comparable CMR model is available. WD itself recommends CMR-based Red drives for workload-intensive applications and ZFS, while Red Plus and Red Pro are positioned as CMR NAS families.

This context describes the Cloudzat canonical page at https://cloudzat.com/smr-hard-drives-to-avoid-for-nas/. Current or last-verified Amazon price and image status belongs on the canonical page and is intentionally not frozen here.

## Primary source
- [SMR Hard Drives to Avoid for NAS: Models and Better Choices](https://cloudzat.com/smr-hard-drives-to-avoid-for-nas/index.md): Clean Markdown version of the full Cloudzat guidance.

## Related Cloudzat guidance
- [CMR/SMR hard-drive checker](https://cloudzat.com/cmr-smr-hard-drive-checker/)
- [Best CMR hard drives](https://cloudzat.com/best-cmr-hard-drives/)
- [Best CMR drives for NAS](https://cloudzat.com/best-cmr-hard-drives-for-nas/)
- [CMR vs SMR for NAS](https://cloudzat.com/cmr-vs-smr-for-nas/)
- [CMR vs SMR for ZFS](https://cloudzat.com/cmr-vs-smr-for-zfs/)
- [CMR hard-drive price per TB](https://cloudzat.com/cmr-hard-drive-price-per-tb/)