Deciphering Toshiba S/N for recent 2.5'' drives

[SOSdonnees]

Here are the results of my first investigations, with the example of a 2,5'' 2TB USB drive.

Model

Code:

MQ01ABB200
1234567890

1 : seem always "M" for 2.5'' drives (probably "M" is for "Mobile")
2: seem the generation / serie of drives (K for older drives ; Q for newer ones)
3 & 4: sub-family? ("01" seem very common)
5: A= SATA interface ; U = USB interface
6: ? seem always "B"
7: ? varies (...,B, C, D, ...)
8-10: three last positions = capacity in 10GB (in this example a 2 TB drive)

Drive rev
AA00/AY000U

Serial number

Code:

Y48 JP9F1T XR6 HDKFB02AZA01 T
MYJ ABCDE XYZ 123456789012 #


First block of 3 digits:
M: Month of production (1,2, ... October is X, November Y, December Z)
Y: Last digit of the year of production (eg. 0 for 2010, 4 for 2014, 5 for 2015)
J: Day of production (1,2,...9,A,B,...) (eg. G is for 16)

Second block of 5 digits
A: ?
B: ?
C: ?
D: ?
E: ?

Third block of 3 digits
X: ?
Y: ?
Z: ?

Fourth block of 12 digits (with example HDKFB02AZA01)
This is the model code.
1 (H): ? (seem often H)
2 (D): ? (seem often D)
3 (K): ? seem often K
4 (F): ? varies
5 (B): ?
6 (0): ?
7 (2): ?
8 (A): ? (seem often A)
9 (Z): seem always Z for SATA drives and always Y for USB drives
10 (A): (seem often A)
11 (0): for USB 3? (seem 0 for SATA drives and 0 or 3 for USB drives)
12 (1): ? (seem always 1)

Fifth block (1 digit)
#: ? seem either T or S

Notes:
For those with keen eyes, carefully comparing the Toshiba drives listed on Donnordrives.com (http://www.donordrives.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Toshiba) may help to find out the how the miscellaneous drive configurations are coded, as their descriptions of each drive are very detailed and it is easy to see several drives of the same model listed on the same page, making easier such serial number "reverse engineering".
I'm not affiliated with donnordrives nor any drive/pcb seller.

Please share if you find more.

[SOSdonnees]

Drive rev
AA00/AY000U

The second number of the drive rev. is the firmware version.

Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to update the original post, as there is no "edit" button available for the first message.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Drive rev
AA00/AY000U

The second number of the drive rev. is the firmware version.

Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to update the original post, as there is no "edit" button available for the first message.

Hi ,
Appreciate Your Work No Issues With Edit Writing Here is Good Enough

[dataack]

Hi, more info for you...

http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/us/d ... ducts.html

[SOSdonnees]

By comparing about 30 Toshiba 2.5'' drives that I have here, the last char on the S/N line seems to code the country of origine (or possibly the production site).

Code:

- S : China
- T : Philippines

This observation was done for IDE drives as well as for SATA drives.

(N.B. I wanted to update the original post, but cannot anymore.)

[SOSdonnees]

Model code encoded on 12 contiguous digits on MQ drives (with example HDKFB02AZA01)

By comparing MQ drives with older MK drives, I came to the following conclusion :
this 12-digits code is a concatenation of : 7 digits + 1 digit + 4 digits

Example for an old MK2556GSY drive :

Code:

HDD2E63 D UL03 T

Example for a recent MQ01ABF032 :

Code:

HDKCB07F0A01
which is probably to read as:
HDKCB07 F 0A01

First 7-digits block from the model code:
1-2 (HD) : For hard drives the first two positions are "HD", whether MQ series or older MK series
3 (D or K) : Probably the drive family/generation. "D" for MK series. "K" for newer MQ series
4: ? varies
5: ?
6: ?
7: ?

Second 1-digit block from the model code:
- ?
- varies

Third 4-digits block from the model code:
- ?
- the first two seem always letters
- the second two seem always digits (maybe some revision)

[einstein9]

The Q. is what Diff. does it make @ the end?
think about it.

good luck and good Info.

[H13]

Thanks