The Seagate IronWolf 12TB (ST12000VN0008) uses CMR recording.
Part-number reference: ST12000VN0008 — decoded segments, sibling variants and the warranty check. Live rankings this model belongs to: every 12TB hard drive.
Verified against: Seagate IronWolf 3.5 HDD Data Sheet DS1904.23-2509US, p. 2 · Checked
Conventional recording writes tracks side by side without overlap, so a write never forces the drive to rewrite neighbouring data. That makes the ST12000VN0008 safe for every use including RAID, ZFS, a NAS, and anything with sustained random writes. A rebuild or a resilver on this drive behaves the way the array expects, which is the whole reason the distinction matters. There is no recording-technology reason to avoid this drive for any workload.
| Model number | ST12000VN0008 |
| Brand | Seagate |
| Family | IronWolf |
| Capacity | 12TB |
| Form factor | 3.5" |
| Rotational speed | — |
| Cache | 256 MB |
| Recording technology | CMR |
| Workload rate | 180 TB/year |
| Warranty | 3 years |
| Status | Current |
| Replaced by | — |
A dash means we have not found a manufacturer document stating that field for this exact model. We leave it blank rather than filling it from a retailer listing.
It is CMR, per Seagate IronWolf 3.5 HDD Data Sheet DS1904.23-2509US, p. 2 - Seagate's documentation for this exact part number - which also rates it at 180TB/year workload; its closest tracked rival at this capacity is the HDWG21C.
Yes: Seagate IronWolf 3.5 HDD Data Sheet DS1904.23-2509US, p. 2 states CMR for the ST12000VN0008, and conventional recording means a write never forces neighbouring tracks to be rewritten, so rebuilds and resilvers behave normally. Check the workload rating and warranty for your duty cycle separately.