What Hard Drive is in the Western Digital 12TB Easystore?

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I recently just shucked the new revised version of the WD 12TB easystore and as far as I can tell it is a helium filled drive and runs at 5400 RPM, which will make for a great addition to my Unraid NAS array. We will talk about the cache size later on, so scroll down if you want those details now.

Model and Specs

WD 12TB Easystore

  • Model: WDBAMA0120HBK-NESN

  • DCM:  TGBPWCP

  • Drive Model: WD120EMFZ

  • Drive Family: Not Listed / Not Available

  • Drive Street Name: 12TB "White Label"

  • Origin: Thailand

  • 5400 RPM

  • Cache??? Unknown/To be Determined

What is the cache size of the 12TB WD120EMFZ?

I have seen people claim it is 512MB and I have also seen people say 256MB. But, I personally have yet to see anyone post a screen capture showing the true cache size. Most likely this is a rebranded HC520, which is a 256MB cache hard drive. Evidently the F in EMFZ, is supposed to represent 512MB but I’d rather see it to believe than be told so, especially after how shady Western Digital has been acting as of late. Below is all the information CrystalDiskInfo has about this drive.

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You can see that even Crystal Disk does not list or show Buffer / cache size… so, I don’t know about you but I don’t know what to believe. I’m hoping to update this in the future when I get the chance. But the real question is, does this matter? Well yes and no. For me, it truly doesn’t make a difference because I am using Unraid. Any data I am transferring to my NAS is getting written to NVMe cache first then later at night, getting moved onto the data array, so I will never see any performance gains anyway.

DriveDX

I was hoping that DriveDX would show me the cache size but it too doesn’t display this information but just like in Crystal Disk we can see that this drive is in face a helium drive, you can see that the Gas Level is at 100%. Anyway pretty neat stuff.

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Benchmark

Honestly, benchmarking the drive isn’t very valuable but I’m only including this because I know someone will ask and will want to know. I used Blackmagicdesign to bench the drive with a 5GB stress. Here is the result.

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What is the White Label Drive?

It is most likely a rebranded WD Ultrastar DC HC520, which is also a helium filled drive. Which means, that if it is truly a rebranded HC520 then it would have a 256MB cache. One thing to know though, the HC520’s run at 7200 RPMs and not 5400 RPMs like this drive does.

There is some good news however, WD has confirmed that these drives are in fact not SMR drives. These drives do not support TRIM. Which for me, neither of these features matter. But the fact that it is not SMR is very important for other use cases outside of mine. So is the WD120EMFZ a SMR drive? No, no it isn’t, hell yeah!

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What is the difference between the old EasyStore enclosure and the new easystore enclosure?

I’m pretty confident the real reason the Easystore has a new enclosure/shell is because of some rebranding and/or updating the easystore “image”. However, I don’t think the drives are going to be different than the previous generation, or at least not for the 8TB and up models. I would be very wary of the 6TB and less models, due to the lack of features and the fact those are most likely SMR low cache drives. Anyway, here are some pictures showing the different enclosures. The new model is very hard to photograph hahaha, for me anyway.

3.3 Volt Issue

These drives do seem to have the 3.3 Volt issue. I slapped it into my Unraid server and it did not show up. So that means I’m going to have to use some Kapton Tape in that server if I want to use it. Google has plenty of options to help you to resolve this problem if you experience your drive not showing up. You should know that you may not be affected by this issue because not all power supplies and backplanes are the same. This does work in a different server without issue. Anyway here is a screenshot of it not showing up in one of my servers.

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Happy Shucking

Well there really isn’t much else that needs to be pointed out or said. These drives will be great for home use and a great way to save money when they are on sale. Do not buy them at MSRP. You can “shuck” them from their enclosures and use them as needed assuming the 3.3volt issue doesn’t hinder you from using them. Thankfully we know of ways around that. Don’t be like me and have all the right tools but still mess up the enclosure hahahaha.

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