Toshiba MG03ACA400 4TB Nearline HDD Review

Review: Toshiba MG03ACA400
Reviewed by: Geir Dahl
Provided by: Toshiba
Model: MG03ACA400
Firmware: FL1A

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Toshiba is one of the pioneers in the field
of data storage. They have product lines for both consumers and enterprise
users. This review is of a specifically tailored enterprise HDD: The 3.5”
MG03ACA400 4TB Nearline drive.

Let’s start with what the drive is tailored to be. In today’s market, what distinguishes
this drive from the others? Well, it is simply specifically made and optimised for
backup storage. This drive is not made to host an operating system, where random
read and write performance of small files matters, although it could. Its
purpose is solely to sustain sequential writes from a host system more efficiently
than traditional HDDs.

Over the next pages we will take a closer
look at how this drive behaves and performs. This particular line of Toshiba’s enterprise
storage comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB, with either SATA3 or
SAS2 interfaces. Toshiba has been kind enough to send me a 4TB SATA3 version to
review.

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Information about Toshiba

For your convenience, here is the link to
Toshiba’s website, where you can find out more about this unit and their considerably
vast variety of electronics:

 website.


The Toshiba MG03ACA400 4TB HDD

Let’s have a look at the specifications and packaging of the
drive

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Packaging

I received a typical bulk drive which is the most common
packaging for enterprise HDDs. Typically, they come in bulk packaging of 20
drives per box with each drive packed in an antistatic bag or plastic cover.

Here is the review sample we received:


Drive top


Drive bottom

 

PCB dismantled. To
the bottom right you can see the grey foam padding which serves to absorb
vibration.

Proceed to the next page for detailed specifications and
a deeper dive into the hardware...

 

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