Introduction: A New Option Under Soaring Storage Costs
The storage market is going through an unprecedented price surge, and storage costs have risen sharply for regular consumers and home NAS users. Large-capacity HDDs that once cost under 1,000 CNY now often cost two times more or even higher, putting them out of reach for many budget-conscious users. In this market environment, however, the HC620 is one of the few products that has not increased in price as dramatically. This article is not only about the HC620; it also applies to other similar SMR drives.
Common Misconceptions About HC620
Many people worry about whether HC620 is safe for data storage, but this is a typical misconception. The HC620 itself is an enterprise-grade drive, and its hardware quality is not poor. The “unsafe” impression usually comes from misunderstandings about SMR drives and using them in the wrong scenarios. SMR drives should not be used for frequent write-and-delete workloads, because that can trigger data reshuffling, reduce performance, and even cause severe stalls. But that is a workload mismatch, not a product defect. It is similar to enterprise tape systems: they work fine when used for sequential write and sequential read. Likewise, HC620 is suitable for sequential writes with random reads, but not for heavy concurrent delete-and-write workloads. In the right scenario, HC620 performs very well.
Suitable and Unsuitable Scenarios
- Suitable scenarios:
- Cold data backup and archiving at large capacity
- Media libraries that are written once and then searched/read online (reads are naturally random head seeks, not strict sequential reads)
- Unsuitable scenarios:
- Workloads with frequent reads and writes (databases, downloading, active workspaces)
- Direct usage on operating systems such as Windows and macOS is not supported (network-based access is excluded from this limitation)
Usage Requirements for HC620
The biggest issue with HC620 is convenience: it can be difficult to use, especially for beginners.
- Hardware requirements
- Do not connect it through a USB drive enclosure.
- Direct connection to a motherboard SATA port is usually fine, but expansion cards can be inconsistent. Compatibility issues may occur. LSI 9300 (SAS3008) can work after flashing IT/HBA firmware. JMB585 has both working and non-working cases, so compatibility is mixed.
- M.2-to-SATA adapters are also inconsistent. My M.2-to-JMB585 adapter works, but I have seen many incompatible cases, likely related to BIOS or firmware differences.
- Software requirements
- Not supported on Windows and macOS; supported on Linux
- Supported on Feiniu NAS
Summary
For beginners, the easiest approach is to use Feiniu NAS and mount HC620 as external storage, using the whole drive for backups or a media library.
For users whose NAS capacity is full, moving less frequently used data to HC620 is also a practical way to free up NAS space.