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Toshiba · Data-centre drive · MG09ACA12TE

Toshiba MG09 12TB

Toshiba builds this one for data-centre racks; in a home NAS it's simply a big 7,200 rpm SATA drive with five years' cover.

Capacity
12 TB
Recording
CMR
Speed
7,200 rpm
Warranty
5 years
Workload
550 TB/yr
Failure rate
No failure data

Good for

  • Busy arrays (550 TB a year)
  • Big media libraries
  • RAID, SHR and ZFS rebuilds
  • 5 years' warranty

Not for

  • A desk or bedroom (7,200 rpm is the louder class)

Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Method 2.0

Who the MG09 12 TB is for

Pick it for raw capacity in a box that lives out of earshot, because 7,200 rpm enterprise drives are built to run flat out all day, every day. You also get five years' warranty, two more than the cheapest NAS lines. It's CMR, which is what you want anywhere near a RAID or ZFS rebuild.

Watch out for

Being 7,200 rpm, it's in the noisier, warmer class of drive, and you'll want it somewhere you don't sit.

No Backblaze failure rate for this one. They don't run enough of them, if any, for a figure worth quoting. Power draw is 3.3 W idle and 7.43 W working on Toshiba's figures, or 29 kWh a year if it spends the whole year idling. Put four in RAID 5 and you'll have 36 TB to fill (Windows will call it 32.7 TB).

Specifications

Each value links to the Toshiba page or datasheet it came from.

Toshiba MG09 12TB specifications
Drive type Data centre source for Drive type (toshiba-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Capacity 12 TB source for Capacity (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Spindle speed 7,200 rpm source for Spindle speed (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Recording technology CMR source for Recording technology (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Cache 512 MB source for Cache (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Interface SATA 6Gb/s source for Interface (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Form factor 3.5in source for Form factor (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Max sustained transfer 281 MB/s source for Max sustained transfer (toshiba-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Workload rating 550 TB/yr source for Workload rating (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
MTBF / MTTF 2,500,000 hours source for MTBF / MTTF (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Maker's rated AFR 0.35% source for Maker's rated AFR (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Warranty 5 years source for Warranty (toshiba-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Power at idle 3.3 W source for Power at idle (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Power in use 7.43 W source for Power in use (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)
Noise at idle 20 dB source for Noise at idle (toshiba.semicon-storage.com, opens in new tab)

Sources: toshiba.semicon-storage.com, toshiba-storage.com