The WD WD Red 12TB (WD120EFAX) uses CMR recording.
Verified against: Western Digital internal client HDD recording technology - SMR drives by capacity (7 July 2020) · Checked
Conventionally recorded despite the EFAX suffix. WD's client SMR list names only the 2TB to 6TB Red drives as shingled.
Conventional recording writes tracks side by side without overlap, so a write never forces the drive to rewrite neighbouring data. That makes the WD120EFAX 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 | WD120EFAX |
| Brand | WD |
| Family | WD Red |
| Capacity | 12TB |
| Form factor | 3.5" |
| Rotational speed | — |
| Cache | — |
| Recording technology | CMR |
| Workload rate | — |
| Warranty | — |
| Status | Discontinued |
| 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 Western Digital internal client HDD recording technology - SMR drives by capacity (7 July 2020), which is WD'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.