Brake pads and brake shoes are different from one another. The brake pad is built for disc brakes found on most front axles of cars and trucks. Brake shoes, on the other hand, are built for drum brakes which are often found on the back axles of cars and trucks. The reason behind these two different designs can be found by examining the braking sequence:

When you actuate the brakes of your vehicle, the disc brake pads or brake shoes have to slow down the brake rotors or drums mounted between tire rims and the suspension. The friction of the disc pads squeezing the rotors or pushing the brake shoes outward on the drums in order to slow the vehicle down causes the disk pads or shoes to get really hot.






On long downhill runs, there is a lot more stress placed on the front brakes (and therefore the front brake pads) than on the back brakes. For this reason, a superior braking method is required for the front brakes in order to handle this extra stress.
 As mentioned above, the disc brakes located at the front of the vehicle are required to handle more stress than the drum brakes at the rear of the vehicle. As a result, they need to be of a higher quality.

Disc brakes were developed by race car and aircraft designers who wanted to find the best way of slowing down the machine without burning up the brake shoes. They were later introduced to the front axles of commercial vehicles in order to reduce the wear-and-tear on the front brakes.






The rear axle, on the other hand, doesn't have nearly as much force on it during braking, and since brake drums are cheaper and easier to manufacture, these are the more common form of brakes on the rear of most passenger cars and trucks.






However, more modern performance cars and heavy duty trucks usually have disc brakes on both axles (front and rear) because of their superior braking capacity. Disc brakes handle heat a bit better than drum brakes too, which means they still work well when they’re hot. Any braking system can develop fading from heat or water but disc brakes recover from those two issues quicker than drum brakes.
Learn the difference between brake pads and brake shoes.
Understand why disc brakes are superior to drum brakes.
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