Find Date of Manufacture of External Hard Drives (DOM)

Quick Links:

• Toshiba Date Calc
  WD Warranty Check
  Seagate_date_code
• western_digital_model_number_decoder
  Seagate-date-code-
  Seagate-hdd-date-codes
  Storage-products-hdd Date Info
  

Using Serial Number: (unverified)

Using 1st 3 digits of the serial number:
Find 1st block of 3 digits in Serial#:
- M: Month production (1,2, ... Oct –> X, November –> Y, December –> Z)
- Y: Last digit of the year of production (eg. 0 for 2010, 4 for 2014, 5 for 2015)
- D: Day of production (1,2,...9,A,B,...) (eg. G –> 16)
E.g: - X1A = 10th November 2011

e.g: WX11A7317973

November, 2011, 1st

For WD Drives:

Exam the following:

(1) Determine drive’s warranty status by typing its serial number into WD’s online warranty checker:

https://westerndigital.secure.force.com/WarrantyCheck?lang=en

or

E.g:, warranty period will be 1, 2, 3, or 5 years, plus a few months.

(2) Look at the date codes on the Printed circuit board. Use a Torx 6 screwdriver.

e.g::
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-14437584971410_2269_336392 59

Note the “3709” on the PCB below pin #1 the Samsung SDRAM. This means: PCB was manufactured during the 37th week of 2009.

Now: examine markings on each of the chips:

Samsung SDRAM at location U2 - “940”
Marvell 88i9045 MCU at U5 - “0942”
SMOOTH chip at U1 - “0943”
Winbond “BIOS” IC at U12 - “0938”

*Chip markings are date codes in YWW or YYWW (Year / Week) format. E.g: SMOOTH chip was manufactured during the 43rd week of 2009.

From this we can infer: drive cannot have been manufactured before week 43 of 2009.

Toshiba:

Calculator!: https://www.data-medics.com/forum/toshiba-date-code-calculator-t1113.html

Per: http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32197

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)

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)

References:

WD Model Number Code

BackUp location