Toshiba MG10 Part Numbers: MG10, MG10F and MG10-D, and How MG10 Compares With MG11

Toshiba MG10 20TB and 18TB: MG10ACA20TE, MG10SCA20TE and the other numbers

These rows come from two Toshiba documents, the MG10 web page's model table and the 2022 MG10 SATA overview. The web page labels each row Standard, SIE or SED. MG10ACA20TE is the 20 TB SATA 512e standard number, and MG10SCA20TE is its SAS counterpart.

The two documents disagree, and we print the disagreement. The MG10 SATA overview, Rev. 00 of September 2022, lists 20, 18 and 16 TB. The MG10 web page gives 'Available Capacities: 20 TB, 18 TB'. We do not decide which is current.

The overview is narrower in other ways too. It describes SATA models only and prints no SAS number, so every SAS row above rests on Toshiba's web page. Its Optional Security column is blank on all six rows, so the SIE and SED rows above rest on the web page as well. It also prints the 18 TB 512e number with a stray space, MG10ACA18T E, which we close up.

The 20 TB table holds 2 listings right now. Lowest per TB: £44.35/TB. MG10 and MG10F both list 20 TB, so this table can hold either, and the prefix on a row tells you which. The wider choice is on 20 TB hard drives, and SAS at this size has 20 TB SAS hard drives.

Toshiba MG10 specifications, with MG10F beside it

MG10's power takes some care. The SATA overview prints 8.11 W random write/read and 4.38 W Active Idle under 20 TB. A second pair, 7.86 W and 4.17 W, is printed to the right against the 18 TB and 16 TB columns, and from the extracted text we cannot prove whether it covers both or only 16 TB. Toshiba's web page then gives 4.18 W Idle-A for the 18 TB model. So the 4.17 W cell cannot be assigned to 18 TB, and we print the two numbers without reconciling them. These are SATA figures. We hold no MG10 SAS watt figure. MG10F's Idle-A on SAS is 4.82 W.

Divide by capacity and the idle figures come out at about 0.22 W per TB for MG10 at 20 TB and 0.23 W at 18 TB. MG10F prints one SATA Idle-A figure, with no split between 22 TB and 20 TB; if it holds at 22 TB, that is about 0.20 W per TB. That arithmetic is ours and leaves out load, cooling and anything your enclosure adds.

From the MG10 overview: typical sound power of 20 dB at Active Idle and 32 dB at seek, operating ambient of 5 °C to 55 °C, operating shock of 490 m/s2 {50 G} for 2 ms, 600,000 load/unload cycles and a non-recoverable error rate of 10 per 10^16 bits read. The xxxA numbers use a fixed 4096 B block, and the xxxE numbers present 512 B host sectors on 4096 B disk sectors with read-modify-write supported. Toshiba says 512e models include its Persistent Write Cache technology, and it claims power efficiency improvements over earlier MG generations. That is the maker's wording. Do not apply these figures to MG10F or to MG10-D.

Toshiba MG10AFA22TE and MG10 22TB: the MG10F listings

A search for an MG10 at 22 TB lands on MG10F. The MG10 web page stops at 20 TB, and Toshiba's MG10F page lists 22 TB and 20 TB under the AFA and AFP prefixes on SATA, SFA and SFP on SAS. Every row is 512e by default, convertible to 4Kn, so there is no separate 4Kn number as on MG10.

At 20 TB this makes a trap. MG10AFA20TE and MG10ACA20TE differ by one letter and sit on different Toshiba product pages, with 271 MiB/s on one and 268 MiB/s on the other. The MG10F page's overview and manual are dated 11/2023.

The 22 TB table holds 3 listings right now. Lowest per TB: £36.36/TB. Other makers at this size are on 22 TB hard drives.

Toshiba MG10ADA10TE, MG10ADA800E and MG10ADA400E: the MG10-D line

MG10-D is a separate line, from 10 TB down to 1 TB, in its own document dated May 2024. These rows are transcribed from the text of Toshiba's PDF, so check a figure against the PDF itself before relying on it. Confirm a number before you rely on it. The printed note says the default configuration is 512e and 512e models can be converted to 4Kn.

That is 45 numbers, as a transcription. The document labels rows with a Y suffix SIE and rows on ADP and SDP prefixes SED, and it lists no SAS row at 1 TB.

The lines we can stand behind are a 512 MiB buffer, MTTF/MTBF of 2,000,000 hours at 0.44% AFR and 550 TB a year, which a second reader pass reproduced. The rating is lower than MG10's 2,500,000 hours at 0.35%, so MG10 figures do not carry down to this line. The per-capacity power cells came from one pass, mapped by printed order, and we have left them out. The overview's key features list Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR), in the same reader transcription. We hold no weight for this line.

The 10 TB table holds 3 listings right now. The 8 TB table holds 2 listings. The 4 TB table holds 1 listing right now. Each table is sorted per TB.

Toshiba MG10 vs MG11: what Toshiba's documents and Backblaze show

At the one size both print clearly, 20 TB on SATA, power barely moves: the same 8.11 W on write/read and 0.03 W apart at idle. What moves is the buffer, which doubles, and sustained speed, up 13 MiB/s. MG11 also weighs 10 g more on paper. The workload, MTTF and sound figures match. So on these documents a 20 TB MG11 differs from a 20 TB MG10 mainly in buffer and speed, and not in its rating.

The bigger change is at the top. MG10's web page gives 2 TB per disk across 10 disks, and MG11 reaches 24 TB, which Toshiba's overview puts at 2.4 TB per disk. Idle per TB follows, about 0.18 W at 24 TB on MG11 against about 0.22 W at 20 TB on MG10. On 22 TB, compare MG10F rather than MG10: 271 MiB/s and 512 MiB against MG11's 285 MiB/s and 1 GiB, and MG11's printed 4.35 W SATA idle at 22 TB against MG10F's one printed SATA figure of 4.35 W.

Label the idle figures with care. MG10's 4.38 W is Active Idle (Typ.) in the overview and Idle-A on the web page. MG11's overview uses Active Idle (Typ.). The 18 TB comparison sets a web page Idle-A figure against an overview Active Idle figure, so treat it as approximate.

Do not read Backblaze as a ranking. The MG11 row is about half the age of the MG10 one and is a different capacity, and both are drives in Backblaze's own data centres. A model enters the quarterly table only above 100 drives and 10,000 drive days. The MG11 row has had less time to show anything. The full MG11 list and its power by capacity are on Toshiba MG11.

Toshiba MG10 prices on Amazon.co.uk

The table below holds 12 listings right now. That includes 12 listings in new condition. Lowest per TB: £36.36/TB. Lowest outlay: £304.83. Prices are pounds sterling inc VAT, sorted per TB. This one table can hold MG10, MG10F and MG10-D together, so the part number tells you which set of figures above applies. The sort is a price order and names no winner.

The filter relies on the generation our catalogue reads from a listing, so a listing with a generic title can fall outside it, even at a size where its part number is in the grids above. Toshiba enterprise hard drives filters by the MG line rather than by generation, so its 20 TB and 22 TB tables can catch such a row. If a listing gives no number, ask for it before you press Buy on Amazon.

We have found no warranty length in the MG10 overview or on the MG10 and MG10F web pages. Toshiba Europe's MG Series page says "The MG Series comes with a 5-year limited warranty" and elsewhere "A 5-year extended warranty is also included", and that the warranty commitments "apply under the assumption that annual workload does not exceed 550 TB". It lists MG10ACA, MG10SCA, MG10AFA, MG10SFA, MG10ADA and MG10SDA among its range prefixes. That is the maker's statement, from Toshiba's web page, and it does not tell you how a particular seller or a used unit is treated.