Question how can you tell if your western digital extermal hd is 5400 or 7200 rpm?

[Muse]

I have several of these, intend to remove the HD itself from the enclosure of one and put it in my mini-tower system. I poked around some and don't see how I can find out if it's 5400 or 7200. How do I do that?

 

[VirtualLarry]

The accoustic signature will tell you that.

But, chances are, if it was a desktop 3.5" HDD in an enclosure originally, it's probably 5400/5900 RPM. It's been a LONG time since they put 7200RPM drives in enclosures. Unless you did it yourself.

 

[damian101]

I've never encountered 7200 RPM hard drives in an off-the-shelf external USB case, you can be pretty sure that it's a 5400 RPM SMR drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hey, welcome to Anandtech Forums. Hope that you stick around!

 

[ArisVer]

CrystalDiskInfo may tell you the RPM, maybe not. It shows my 7200rpm drive but shows nothing on my other (5400rpm) drive. If you take them out of the enclosures, search by the written model they have on them.

 

[Muse]

CrystalDiskInfo may tell you the RPM, maybe not. It shows my 7200rpm drive but shows nothing on my other (5400rpm) drive. If you take them out of the enclosures, search by the written model they have on them.

Yeah, I ran crystaldiskinfo on it and didn't notice an RPM shown. Good was all I saw. I never know how to interpret the stats reported, they go over my head.

 

[Steltek]

You apparently can't trust that WD's technical specifications will tell you the truth either:

Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM”

Well those measurements of rotational speed are just, like, your opinion, man…

arstechnica.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv

Who would have thought about labeling faster drives as slower ones and hiding it....

 

[pauldun170]

For several years now, WD has been dumping WD reds and HGST drives into their desktop external lineup.
I recently picked up an EasyStore (aka Elements) 8tb model

Here is the old reference

Drive Model	What that means	Issues?
WD80EFAX	8TB WD Red, 256MB cache	Preferred by many due to higher cache
WD80EFZX	8TB WD Red, 128MB cache	Works for most
WD80EMZZ	8TB WD "White label", 128MB cache	Latest addition to the family. It can be assumed this is similar to the WD80EMAZ to WD80EFAX situation: Just the white label version of the WD80EFZX. Seemingly no 3.3v PIN worries, though.
WD80EMAZ	8TB WD "White label", 256MB cache	Seems identical to WD80EFAX, but potential problems for older devices you m

In addition to the ones listed
ezaz = UltraStar (Helium)
edaz = UltraStar (Non heium)

WD makes cheaper, faster air-filled alternative to 10TB helium hard drive – Blocks and Files

Western Digital has introduced a 10TB air-filled drive that transfers data faster and is less expensive than its 10TB helium-filled drive. The first 6TB disk drive, the Ultrastar He6 was launched by WD”s HGST unit in 2013 and used helium technology to cram seven platters inside the standard...

blocksandfiles.com

i think the latest batch might see more edaz drives.
Pretty sure thats whats in mine.
Good indication will be that the drive runs super hot in its enclosure, 50c - 70c.
It's like WD intended for them to rip their crappy enclosure apart and nab the drive.

 

[MalVeauX]

Here's an example of what WD is doing with their 14TB externals currently, made at factory this year in April of 2020. Keep in mind they can use firmware to report any values they want. So it may or may not be a 5400rpm drive. The temperature is low and under full load it's staying 33C currently in my server (I have several of these, they all are reporting the same). So I'm guessing it's not a 7200rpm drive, just by the sound, temperatures, throughput. I'm fine with that though because the speed difference for a network drive is not critical for mass storage. These white labels drives are not reds though, but these drives are more akin to something with the R/N of US7SAP140 (if you search it, it comes up with Ultrastar DC HC530). They're something else though or the firmware reports something else by force. These are $229 from BestBuy by the way (Easystore).



Crystal Disc info (not that it says much, but it is also good to see it was never powered on for any significant time, minutes, so it's new):





Result is a 12.73TB Mirror (14TB x 1 in mirror). My Gigabit wired network is the limit for transfer speeds.

Very best,