The best possible quality to rip to either .ISO, saving the entire DVD as an image or rip and remux, placing the video into another container. Both will give you 1:1 quality of the original.

MakeMKV can do both of these and is free.

DM-SMR is Drive Managed-SMR. All the write/read activity is handled by the onboard electronics.

HM-SMR is Host Managed-SMR. All write/read activity is handled by specialized external hardware and software. They're far from the capabilities of most home users today.

The current 26TB WD Ultrastar and upcoming 28TB WD drives are HM-SMR. The upcoming 30TB Seagate is also HM-SMR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/13z7w96/lets_discuss_dmsmr_hmsmr_hasmr_and_dropbox/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/146hb9k/information_about_cmr_to_smr_manufacturer/

Your MaxDigitalData (MDD) drive is likely CMR because they're almost surely used enterprise drives. However, be careful as there was a user whose drive was HM-SMR and unusable.

MDD is a division of GoHardDrive and IMO, are drives that GoHardDrive doesn't want to sell under their own name. Also Avolusion (externals) is a division of GoHardDrive and has been reported to contain used drives.

9. r/techsupport exists.

r/Datahoarder is not a sub for tech support,

r/techsupport is for posts which could have been a google search, e.g. a post with CrystalDiskInfo screenshots with the title "is my drive ok?". Literally every question about SMART status. A**udio recordings of "is this click noise normal?" More technical questions are allowed, e.g. "what is the optimal ZFS configuration of a 24 disk array" or "how else can i automate the archiving of this [thing]"

Whatever you choose, make sure you have backups. Plural, ideally with at least one set offsite, physical or cloud.

Professional data recovery. Then, now and in the future!

IMO, no pre-built externals are worth shucking unless they're significantly cheaper than bare retail drives.

About externals and why I recommend not buying them anymore.

This is from a Q&A with an anonymous industry insider who confirmed what others and I have speculated for years.

Q: Is it true that the drives in externals can be: overstock, overruns, binned (out of spec drives), from cancelled orders.

A: Yes to all of it. Externals are the lowest bins above the [redated] (Edit: binned rives} we sell to third parties. It’s whatever is leftover. They have less warranty because they aren’t expected to last as long.

My notes: The first part is supported by what I posted in this thread, https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/11jmot5/to_those_asking_what_drive_is_inside_my_wd/ which has a link to WD's disclosure about this.

It's been confirmed by another source that the binned drives, are drives that are Out Of Spec, flashed with special firmware that can't be updated and is no longer supported by the manufacturer. This is source of SOME of the unbranded drives from certain resellers.

[New edit not in the original thread] The above paragraph is referring to another thread where the OP bought a refurbed internal drive, not an external and it was incorrectly flashed.

Q: Is it true that in a given generation of HDD, when reduced capacities are released at the same time, you can sometimes tell from the model number that it’s the same hardware inside as a full capacity drive” To be used in externals or sold to resellers?

A: Yes, see above. The [redated] (My edit: XX drive size) were reconfigured for 12 and 14TB. The [redacted] went all the way down to 10TB to my knowledge. We just disable specific bad heads in the factory and rewrite the tracks. It’s an automated process obviously, but we can internally look up all that history on any serial number.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/146hb9k/information_about_cmr_to_smr_manufacturer/

This is from the link about WD externals referred to above

To those asking "What drive is inside my WD external?". From WD...

Drive Type Inside of a WD External Drive Enclosure

The drive inside of a Western Digital enclosure may vary depending on application.

• Depending on model, the internal drive included an external enclosure could have a SATA or native USB interface.

• We can only guarantee drive capacity.

We cannot guarantee a particular internal drive model, data interface, rotational speed, power consumption, transfer speed or cache size included in the external hard drive enclosure.

• We can only guarantee a Western Digital Drive.

We cannot guarantee a particular enclosure will have a WD colored drive inside.

• Dismantling any single-drive external enclosure to obtain this information will void the warranty of the hard drive.

Please refer to the Western Digital Warranty Policy.

• Interface and cache of the drives inside the external enclosure does not affect the performance or the data transfer rate of the external drive unit.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/13652

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/11jmot5/to_those_asking_what_drive_is_inside_my_wd/

IMO, pointless as a potential white paper without much stricter controls than two drives and small media samples. May be enough for a undergraduate thesis, but hardly anything that would be worth any type of scrutiny or scientific value.

Max UHD disc speed is 128Mb/s / 16MB/s. Hard drives read at up to ~150-200MB/s, so far from being a limiting factor. Even the slowest 5400 RPM hard drive is still fast enough to play any 4K video.

Even SMR hard drives which do slow down as you full up the drive and/or rewrite files, are fine as the the read speed is the same as CMR drives.

Your issues with crashes and stutters is caused by something else other than the hard drive.

Note that this is for video playback. If you're writing or editing video, then an SSD makes a difference.

Storage takes space and costs money!

To those complaining about Verbatim discs, understand that for decades, disc manufacturers have been selling discs from other makers under their brand name and virtually all first tier disc manufacturers around the world, notably Japan, Singapore, India, UAE have closed. CMC Magnetics used only manufacture 2nd & 3rd tier discs until they completely bought out Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden, including their proprietary formulas.

What's always been the measure of quality is the media code https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmediaform.php?dvdinfo=1#dvdinfo which you can then cross reference in this list: https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia

lordsmurf at digitalfaq.com gave a list of 1st tier blank DVDs that's still relevant today since only Verbatim (Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) and Taiyo-Yuden are the only brands/formulas in use today. https://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

Name brands like Sony, TDK and Maxell are still on the market today, but the media code will show the discs are 2nd or 3rd tier inferior products.

The reason for the quality decline in blank DVDs is that like CDs, the price bottomed out and 1st tier media could no longer be sold at as premium. The good news is you can still get Verbatim AZO discs if you shop carefully and read the package label, lookin for the AZO name and logo. Taiyo-Yuden discs are also still available at a premium.

Note that the media code can be faked, so be sure to buy from a known, reputable seller where you can return your unused discs if they're bad.

WD Blue 6TB is SMR. There are no 8TB+ WD SMR drives in any line. And there are no 10TB+ SMR drives in any Seagate line. Unsure about Toshiba.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/50697/related/1

https://www.seagate.com/products/cmr-smr-list/

https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/ap-en/company/news/news-topics/2020/04/storage-20200428-1.html

For 2.5" drives, with the exception of a few Toshiba and specialized Seagate Exos E, all >500GB are SMR.

Whatever you use, be sure to a CRC and generate a HASH (and ideally save it for future reference) to ensure you copies are bit for bit accurate. This is especially critical for audio files where a split second glitch will haunt you forever!