[SOLVED] Are these external hard drives CMR or SMR?

[leodomitrovic]

Hi,

does someone know which of the external hard drives below are CMR or SMR?

• WD My Passport
• Seagate Basic 1TB Portable
• 1TB StoreJet 25M3 Transcend
• Seagate Expansion Portable 1TB
• Seagate Backup Plus 1000 GB
• 1000 GB WESTERN DIGITAL Elements Portable

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Leo

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Look at the cache. SMR drives will have a much larger cache (typically 256MB) while CMR drives will have a smaller cache (typically 64MB). Outside of that only the manufacturer can tell you since they are sneaky and use the same part # for both.

 

[leodomitrovic]

Look at the cache. SMR drives will have a much larger cache (typically 256MB) while CMR drives will have a smaller cache (typically 64MB). Outside of that only the manufacturer can tell you since they are sneaky and use the same part # for both.

Hi,

thank you for your answer. For 1000 GB WESTERN DIGITAL Elements Portable I found that it has an 8 MB of cache but not 64 MB. I assume that it is CMR drive then. Would it be better that it has 64 MB? Have does cache size affect the performance?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Since you're looking at external drives it really makes no difference. Your interface will be MUCH slower than any cache.