DatacenterDisk

WD 16TB (WUH721816AL5205): Recording Status

We have not found a manufacturer document stating the recording technology for this exact part number. We know what the drive is - a WD 16TB SAS-12G hard drive (3.5") that we track - but a recording technology printed without a source is a guess, and for RAID, NAS or ZFS use that guess is the one that matters. That is a statement about what we have found, not about what WD has published.

What the part number decodes to

Part-number reference: WUH721816AL5205 — decoded segments, sibling variants and the warranty check. Live rankings this model belongs to: every 16TB hard drive · 16TB SAS drives · WD 16TB SAS. Product pages for this part number: WD Ultrastar 16TB SAS WUH721816AL5205 (no current offer).

We hold no SAS model with a sourced recording technology to compare against, and a drive on a different interface would not be a fair comparison - so there is no nearest-model link here.

MakerWD
Capacity16TB
InterfaceSAS-12G
Recording technologyNo maker source found

No seller we track has WUH721816AL5205 in stock right now. That describes today's listings only - it says nothing about whether the model is discontinued.

How to settle it for this drive

Read the model number on the drive's own label, then find WD's data sheet or product manual for that family. A document that prints WUH721816AL5205 in its own row of a recording-technology table settles the question. A family page that names no part numbers does not: we have found maker pages that list neither a part number nor a recording method, and we no longer count them as sources. A retailer listing is not a source either - it is a seller's description, and sellers repeat what other listings say.

Documented WD drives at 16TB

These WD part numbers at the same capacity do have a maker document on record. They are listed for comparison, not as an answer for WUH721816AL5205: two part numbers at one capacity can use different recording methods.

When a source turns up

When we find a maker document that names WUH721816AL5205, this page will state the answer with that document linked and the date we read it, the same way our documented pages do. Until then, the honest answer is that we do not know.

In-stock drives with sourced CMR, 16TB and up