WDBAJP0050BBK-WESE shows as 4800 RPM

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

According to both Crystal Disk Info and HDD Scan, this drive is 4800 rpm. Unfortunately, the spec sheet doesn’t give an rpm.

An older version of the same (?) model shows 5400 rpm in both programs. However, the drive in the older version is labeled by CDI as WD50NMZW-11BGRS1, and in the new as WD50NDZW-11BCSS0.

I’m almost certainly going to return this drive to Best Buy, but I’d like some explanation of why there are different RPM drives in what are ostensibly the same external drive packages.

Thanks.

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WD can put any drive it likes inside the enclosure, as long as it meets the advertised spec. That’s why external drives are a lucky dip.

The reason for the difference is that the two drives belong to different families.

WD50NDZW-11BCSS0 is SpyGlass 3

WD50NMZW-11BGRS1 is ???

It could very well be that the 4800 RPM drive has a higher transfer rate, if it has less heads. A HD Tune read benchmark should show this.

How to determine number of heads using HD Tune:

https://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=650

My biggest concern would be whether either drive is an SMR model. You can use fsutil to check whether the drive supports TRIM.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/fsutil-fsinfo

What WD and HGST hard drives are SMR?

https://hddscan.com/blog/2020/hdd-wd-smr.html