So I've been trying to pay attention to Seagate serial numbers to see if I can make any additional sense of it. So far this is what I think I've figured out about the first few digits.
First Digit - Some sort of site location code. This one tends to often follow the site code SU = S, WU = W, TK = Z but there is some variation and cross over. It's best to match, but not always necessary.
Second Digit - I think it's the specific preamp chip & slider type used and probably the most important to match.
Third Digit - Headmap. F = Full headmap on 3 platters (E.G. 0 1 2 3 4 5). Wheras 4 will have a headmap of 0 1 2 3 4 but be missing head 5. So a S2F can generally replace a S24, but not the opposite. For a single platter drive T = top or head 1 but no head 0, and A or D = bottom head 0 but no top head. However it's not always consistant. I think it may relate to the physical headmap, but not necessarially the logical headmap. And, it's not consistent all the time.
Perhaps if we pay attention to the head maps of some with other letters as the third digit we can figure out the specific meaning.
First Digit - Some sort of site location code. This one tends to often follow the site code SU = S, WU = W, TK = Z but there is some variation and cross over. It's best to match, but not always necessary.
Second Digit - I think it's the specific preamp chip & slider type used and probably the most important to match.
Third Digit - Headmap. F = Full headmap on 3 platters (E.G. 0 1 2 3 4 5). Wheras 4 will have a headmap of 0 1 2 3 4 but be missing head 5. So a S2F can generally replace a S24, but not the opposite. For a single platter drive T = top or head 1 but no head 0, and A or D = bottom head 0 but no top head. However it's not always consistant. I think it may relate to the physical headmap, but not necessarially the logical headmap. And, it's not consistent all the time.
Perhaps if we pay attention to the head maps of some with other letters as the third digit we can figure out the specific meaning.
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