Recording technology used on WD Elements Portable 5 TB?

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
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I’m in the market for a 2.5" 5 TB drive and since my Seagate 2 TB failed me in being too loud I thought about switching back to WD. However, my 3.5" Seagate 4 TB with SMR technology has real issues when copying over huge files sequentially so I wonder what’s used for the WDBU6Y0050BBK-WESN. Since it’s > 4 TB it’s SMR as well?

Anyone got any experience on how it performs?

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I guess, this explains why I haven’t gotten an answer. Wow, just wow.

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And WD just can’t help themselves. Unbelievable.

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I too bought a Seagate (2.5" 5TB Backup Plus) and was surprised to have very slow speeds when copying from a 3.5" 4TB Seagate Essentials drive. Therefore I wanted to find a CMR drive. Seagate states which of their drives are CMR/SMR and none of the CMR meet my needs, so I look at WD but WD will not tell us which drives are CMR and which are SMR!!! WHY?!?!

Yesterday, WD online chat told me :“Please allow me to inform all the my passport are CMR drives.” and “Please allow me to inform you that CMR and SMR is not applicable for the external drives.” I pressed him. Twice he said “please wait” as if going to check and came back with the same answer. :frowning:

Everyone (except WD) says that the 5TB passport is SMR. I wanted to know if the current WD Passport Ultra 4TB is CMR or SMR. In some reviews it appears that old ones were CMR and others are SMR but I haven’t been able to verify.

I’m in Indonesia and couldn’t find a 2TB 2.5" internal drive other than Seagate’s SMR.

So annoying. Why can’t WD just be up front and honest about what is inside their drives?! I’m going to try to survive without buying anything because I’m so disappointed right now.