smartctl: Toshiba HDD serial numbers are only 9 characters

I noticed today that the serial number for Toshiba drives, as retrieved by smartctl(8) is not the whole serial number. I am not sure why.

I discovered this when I went to check the warranty information for a drive. The drive is fine; I just wanted to check. Using smartctl, I got this:

$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/ada5 | head
smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [FreeBSD 9.1-STABLE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     TOSHIBA DT01ACA300
Serial Number:    Z2U4W1XGS
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000039 ff4c23712
Firmware Version: MX6OABB0
User Capacity:    3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical

Right there, on line 7, you can see the serial number. Count it. It’s 9 characters.

Now visit the Toshiba Warranty page (I listed a few such warranty links in a recent post). You’ll get told: Warranty could not be determined for this serial number.

Now click on How to find the T-S/N. The serial number on that graphic has an extra three characters. There is even a mention of Input the drives 12 digit Toshiba S/N, NO SPACES.

I just think it would be more convenient to find out the number from smartctl(8) without having to pull the drive.

Let’s see what Toshiba Support on Twitter says.

Website Pin Facebook Twitter Myspace Friendfeed Technorati del.icio.us Digg Google StumbleUpon Premium Responsive

Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top