The Seagate SkyHawk 4TB (ST4000VX016) uses CMR recording.
Verified against: Seagate CMR and SMR hard drive list · Checked
Conventional recording writes tracks side by side without overlap, so a write never forces the drive to rewrite neighbouring data. That makes the ST4000VX016 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 | ST4000VX016 |
| Brand | Seagate |
| Family | SkyHawk |
| Capacity | 4TB |
| 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 the manufacturer does not state that field for this exact model. We leave it blank rather than filling it from a retailer listing.
It is CMR. That comes from Seagate CMR and SMR hard drive list, which is Seagate's own documentation for this exact part number rather than a capacity-level summary or a retailer listing.
Yes. Conventional recording means a write never forces neighbouring tracks to be rewritten, so rebuilds and resilvers behave normally. There is no recording-technology objection to this drive in an array, check the workload rating and warranty for your duty cycle separately.