MG Series

I usually buy Western Digital drives but given their recent anti-consumer practices (secretly supplying shingled drives where it used to be CMR, drives which issue a SMART failure after 3 years of operational time regardless of their actual condition and most recently the issues with their SSD subsidy SanDisk where rather than recall defective SSD's they simply cut the price in half in an apparent attempt to get rid of them) I decided to try another brand. As a bonus I managed to snag a discount; Amazon were offering a 20% off voucher and so I got the 4TB model for just under £82, which wasn't bad. It would have been nice if Amazon's packaging had been better, a single layer of bubble wrap in one of those Amazon book mailers isn't adequate, but that said it arrived without dents or obvious external damage. This drive is significantly more noisy than my 10 year old WD Red and even in a sound dampened case I can hear it clicking away. That said it's not particularly loud, completely tolerable even though I'm sitting right next to it and anyway it's aimed primarily at datacenters where this isn't going to be a concern so should probably be expected. Speed ranges from an initial speed of about 238MiB/sec to 98MiB/sec under a full disk write. In practice this disk is pretty fast for spinning rust. It does seem to run a bit hot under heavy load so I'd suggest monitoring it's reported SMART temperature (max 46°C) and relocating the drive / increasing fan speeds as appropriate. As for installation, I do what I normally do with new drives and ran a SMART extended (long) test which took a little under 8 hours. This test reveled several bad sectors and after two more runs with a write in between the bad sector count had somewhat strangely decreased but was still there. The acceptable number of bad sectors on a new drive is zero, and given I probably wouldn't be getting that deal again I decided to avoid returning it and instead raise a warranty claim with Toshiba. Although the web-based claim process was easy there were a couple of snags: it has to be sent to their service center in Germany and thanks to the "no trade barriers" Brexit deal you *cannot* simply print off a CN22 and stick it to the box. Instead you need to print off *3* copies of the supplied proforma invoice, include 2 of them in a clear document pouch ON the box (not IN the box!) and give the third to the courier / parcel shop. Toshiba provide a label, which you print off and then can either arrange free collection or take to a UPS-contracted 'parcel shop' / convenience store. I went with the latter although probably should have just arranged collection; I'm not sure what was going on but I got the impression the store really didn't want to take the package even though it was small. Total turn around time was 5 working days with it sent out on Monday and a brand new replacement back in my hands Friday. Excellent service Toshiba!

I've had this a few months now, I've nearly filled it with games, works brilliant, benchmarks are nothing to shout about, but fast enough to play the latest games on. Noise is reasonable. For the price it's a pretty good deal, just remember the bigger the drive the more space you lose due the the way computer storage is calculated, you're still getting the correct size regardless. On bigger drives like this it's almost 2tb under 20tb, regardless it'll be the same for any 20tb drive you purchase, it's just how it works. *Update, used heavily daily bought March 2024, now Dec 2025, runs perfectly still

I've been using a pair of these drives in my domestic QNAP NAS for over two years. They have rock solid reliability (which is what you want in a NAS) but I must admit they are LOUD. It's like a box of bolts rattling beneath my desk - hence one star off. Consequently they probably couldn't be used in a living room or bedroom environment, but ideally operated in a garden shed at the bottom of the garden! With 8tb SSD's now readily available (but costing much more) I guess that may be the way to go if your budget allows it.

Used on a server, no warranty, no original label, no original packaging. Extremely noisy with a "bang" when turned on. Definitely not worth the price

Never had a problem with these Toshiba drives. They are fast and run not too warm (with adequate space around them in a case). Mine have been quiet above the normal hummmm. Saying that though I suspect that the 5 year guarantee may be hard to claim against judging by the previous reviews here and my own perusing of Toshiba support site. Though I have just read somebody did find a way through the not so clear returns procedure. But I will reiterate that I have never had an issue with these drives over three years. Competitive pricing if you catch them when Amazon bounces a low price at you. Also good that they are not manufactured in China. HDD was factory sealed and surrounded in a plastic case , foam and cardboard box. Amazon packaging was fine with plenty of paper to stop it all rattling around the Amazon box.

Both drives arrived in properly sized and cushioned packaging with sealed anti-static bags. Currently rebuilding my RAID array, but so far I have higher confidence in their long term viability than I had when I installed the drives they are replacing.

Would be really careful before buying these dives. I wasted half a day faffing around and hoping I can save someone else the hassle: 1. The two HDDs I received weren't new and showed signs of wear including a ding in the front of one drive. Marked as manufacturing date 2018. 2. They were inadequately shipped, wrapped together in a couple of bits of bubble wrap in a small box. 3. Plugged them in to do a full surface scan - both passed perfectly on all sectors. SMART reported 50hrs and 9 power cycles usage already logged which could be proper use or could be factory testing but seems high. That said, you can just wipe the SMART logs so who knows. 4. Tried to add them to an existing array but couldn't. Realised after wasting some time that the seller had sent items MG07ACA12TA rather than MG07ACA12TE which are identical but have an incompatible different block size. 5. Seller issued a return but wouldn't pay for the return postage. Amazon had to issue the £11 to me as a goodwill gesture. Bit of a pain in the arse from start to finish. It seems that selling returned items as new on Amazon is the new incarnation of 'get rich quick dropshipping'. It's a complete pain to deal with these bozos and they've got no idea what their doing. 80% of the items i buy on here now are clearly not new. Amazon need to get them off.

If you own an external drive socket, this is a very capacious, quiet, good value drive to backup your files. JL