The Seagate SkyHawk AI 20TB (ST20000VE003) uses CMR recording.
Part-number reference: ST20000VE003 — decoded segments, sibling variants and the warranty check. Live rankings this model belongs to: every 20TB hard drive. Product pages for this part number: Seagate SkyHawk AI 20TB ST20000VE003 (no current offer).
Verified against: Seagate SkyHawk AI data sheet DS1960-15C · Checked
Conventional recording writes tracks side by side without overlap, so a write never forces the drive to rewrite neighbouring data. That makes the ST20000VE003 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 | ST20000VE003 |
| Brand | Seagate |
| Family | SkyHawk AI |
| Capacity | 20TB |
| Form factor | 3.5" |
| Rotational speed | — |
| Cache | 512 MB |
| Recording technology | CMR |
| Workload rate | 550 TB/year |
| Warranty | 5 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 SkyHawk AI data sheet DS1960-15C - Seagate's documentation for this exact part number - which also rates it at 550TB/year workload; its closest tracked rival at this capacity is the WD201KFGX.
Yes: Seagate SkyHawk AI data sheet DS1960-15C states CMR for the ST20000VE003, 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.