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RDD / Families and hosts / Toshiba MG

MG08ACA16TE · MG09ACA18TE · MG10ACA20TE · MG10AFA22TE · MG10SFA22TE · MG11ACA24TE

Toshiba MG drive recovery. The third maker in the rack, and often the cheapest per terabyte when the server was bought.

Toshiba's MG series is the third enterprise drive in every rack: MG04 to MG11, 1 to 24TB, in SATA and SAS, with the interface in the model string as an A or an S after the series number. The MG07 onwards are helium-filled, the MG10-F puts 22TB on ten platters with twenty heads, and the MG10 and MG11 carry 20 and 24TB. They fail like every other big drive, at the heads and through the defect list, and they have one habit of their own: firmware-sensitive batches, of which Backblaze's MG08ACA16TEY was the loudest example, running at nearly 17 per cent annual failure in the third quarter of 2025 until firmware work brought it down. One failed MG imaged for the rebuild is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–4 days at the bench.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668

Power down. Label every slot before a drive comes out. Do not rebuild while a second drive is flagged. Do not clear or import a foreign configuration. Do not initialise, reformat or PSID-revert anything. A rebuild reads every sector of every surviving member, and on a set whose drives were bought together it is where the second failure is found. Nothing on the drives gets worse while the server is off.

Models we see, family by family.

Which kind of drive is it →
Family Model strings Interface, capacity and notes
MG04, MG06MG04ACA400E, MG06ACA10TEAir · 4–10TB
MG07, MG08MG07ACA14TE, MG08ACA16TE, MG08ACA16TEY, MG08SCA16TEHelium · 14–16TB · nine platters · firmware-sensitive batches
MG09MG09ACA16TE, MG09ACA18TE, MG09SCA18TEHelium · 16–18TB
MG10 and MG10-FMG10ACA20TE; MG10AFA22TE, MG10SFA22TE20TB; 22TB on ten platters with FC-MAMR
MG11MG11ACA24TE24TB

What tends to go wrong on a Toshiba MG.

Firmware-sensitive batchesBackblaze's MG08ACA16TEY ran at 16.95 per cent annual failure in the third quarter of 2025 after firmware work, and 4.14 per cent in the fourth. A batch that misbehaves on one firmware revision is a set to watch, and the revision is recorded on arrival.
Ten platters, twenty headsThe MG10-F's 22TB comes from ten platters in a helium case. More heads to fail, a bigger stack to replace, and a drive that must be imaged the moment it is opened.
The 22TB that is not 20The MG10-F is 22TB, MG10AFA22TE and MG10SFA22TE; the 20TB drive is the MG10ACA20TE. Sellers confuse them and so do forums.
Same batch, same hoursA QNAP full of MG08s bought on one day is a set that reaches its wear together, and the second failure follows the first.

Toshiba MG symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
Packing it and posting it: power the server or shelf down, write the slot number on each drive with a marker before it comes out of its carrier, and keep it in the carrier. Send every member from the set where the set is the job, or the one failed member where the set is healthy and you want it imaged for the rebuild. Each drive travels in an anti-static bag inside its own padding, in a box with nothing able to move. Send the controller only if we ask for it. Insure the parcel for what the data is worth rather than the price of the drives, and use a tracked service. The posting address is not printed anywhere on this site; it arrives by email in reply to the form, with a booking sheet to print; the sheet inside the parcel is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened. Or hand the sealed parcel in at the nearest of ten drop-off points, your name on the outside and the sheet inside; say where you are on the form and it comes by email. We pay the postage home either way. The whole of it is written up on the guide to packing and posting.

What the message means on a Toshiba MG.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason Where that leaves you
Predictive failureThresholds crossed; still readsReplace on a healthy set; image first on a degraded one
Failed by the controller; spinsAnswered one read too slowlyUsually reads on the bench; image it
ClickingFailed headsPower down; matched donor in clean air
Rebuild stalled on this driveUnrecoverable read errorsImaged with weak areas last; set rebuilt from images

From the parcel arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on the parcel and a number on every drive the day it is opened, matched to the slot you wrote on it. An engineer settles what has actually happened before anything spins: the interface, the sector format, the firmware, the security state, and what the controller was saying when it stopped. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo rebuilds, no imports, no resets
02

The drive on its own bench

A member drive is read on the equipment its interface needs: a SAS imager for SAS and NL-SAS, a SATA imager for enterprise SATA, a terminated SCSI or Fibre Channel controller for the legacy drives, a PCIe adaptor for NVMe. It is never put back in a server, and never in a controller that will try to rebuild. Drives that answer at full speed are imaged; drives with weak or failed heads go to the clean bench, where matched donors are fitted and the service area repaired before a sector is read.

Read at its native interfaceFailing heads to the clean bench
03

Imaged once, at its native sector size

Every drive is imaged sector by sector, head by head where it needs it, with the bad areas last. Drives with 520- or 528-byte sectors are imaged as they are and the extra bytes stripped from the image, never the drive. Self-encrypting drives are unlocked on the imager with the key you supply. From then on the originals are not touched again.

Head by head, weak areas lastNative sector size preserved
04

The image, and the set

Where the set is healthy and one member was the job, the image goes back to you on a fresh drive, sector-identical, ready to rebuild from. Where the set is the job, every member is imaged and the array reassembled in software from the images: order, chunk size, parity rotation and the reshape point read from the drives' own metadata, the file system repaired on the virtual volume, never on the originals. The array work is covered in full on our RAID array site, and it happens on the same bench.

One member: a sector-identical image on fresh mediaA set: reassembled in software from the images
05

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job3–4 days at the bench

From the bench

  • Record the firmware revision on arrival. Toshiba's batches differ by it, and the bench plans around it.
  • Never update firmware on a failed drive. The update prevents the fault on healthy drives; it does not repair a drive that failed for other reasons.
  • A is SATA, S is SAS, and the rest of the string says the format and the security option.
  • Failed by the controller is not failed. Enterprise firmware reports a bad sector in seconds; the controller drops the drive; the drive reads on a bench that waits.
  • Send it in its carrier with the slot written on it, and the controller's log if you can export one.
  • Drives bought together fail together. When one goes, the survivors are on notice, and the rebuild is where it shows.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · RDD-2026-0568JOB LOGGED ✓

Four MG08ACA16TE drives in a QNAP TS-453D RAID 5, two dropped within a fortnight, and the QNAP offering to rebuild onto a third drive with pending sectors

The owner powered down. Both dropped drives were imaged, one after a head swap on the clean bench, the other with its weak areas last; the third drive was imaged too. All three images went back on fresh drives and the set was reassembled from them on the NAS bench.

100% of the set recovered6 days here, and back by post
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Power down and label the slot
  • Send the drive in its carrier
  • Export the controller log
  • Tell us the model string and the firmware revision

What sets us back

  • Rebuilding with a second drive flagged
  • Putting the drive back in to see
  • Running a long SMART test on a weak drive
  • Handing the failed drive to the warranty courier first

Questions answered before you commit.

Is the MG10-F 20TB?

No, 22TB: MG10AFA22TE on SATA and MG10SFA22TE on SAS. The 20TB drive is the MG10ACA20TE.

Should I update the firmware on my MG08s?

On healthy drives, yes, to the revision Toshiba recommends. On a drive that has failed, no.

Can you recover a ten-platter MG10-F?

Yes. The head stack is large and the case is opened once, with the drive imaged immediately afterwards.

What does it cost?

£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing; sets of two to four from £500 + VAT.

Nothing gets worse while it is powered down.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the server off and the drives in their slots.

0800 6890668