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1, VANGOPLUS, PANGO, VELOCE, PALO, and MAGMA drives contain HT code, i.e. code for launch of SA test and drive preparation for a Burn-In test;

2, V40, P40, V40P, VL40, and V60 models of Samsung drives bear a side label with letter code. The fourth letter in the code means the manufacturer of heads used in a HDD: xxxRx – READ RITE; xxxSx –SAE; xxxAx – ALPS. It is important during donor selection for replacement of the magnetic head assembly and firmware selection for ROM. The third letter in the code means platter manufacturer: xxMxx – MCC; xxTxx –TRACE; xxSxx – SDK.

In VANGOPLUS, PANGO, VELOCE, PALO, MAGMA drives you can find such marks on top HDA label.The marks follow Part Number being designated as P/V. E.g.: P/V MS. Here, supposedly, the first letter means plattermanufacturer (M) while the second indicates the manufacturer of heads (S).

In cases, when you are replacing the magnetic heads assembly (MHA) you should use the letter codes as aguideline, i.e. the letters indicating the heads manufacturer must match.

When replacing the PCB on Samsung drives you are advised to use boards with the same version. However, it is allowed to use other versions for all boards except MAGMA family;

3, Disk surface in Samsung drives is subdivided into zones. Their continuous numbering may range from 0 to 16 or from 0 to 24 depending upon the family. The zero zone starts at the external disk edge and acts as the area allocated
for service data.

The service area includes tracks 0-7, 0-23 or 0-15 depending upon the drive’s family. In VICTOR,  PUMA, VICTORPLUS,  VERNA,  VERNALITE,  and VANGO drive families the service area also includes tracks with negative numbers. Those tracks may contain both modules used during drive operation and copies of some critical modules. The service area may contain some unformatted tracks, e.g. in the negative part usually just a single track is used (-6 or -10). Every drive family has a constant service area SPT value.

User data area may be either constant for a specific drive family or adaptive (AZL – Adopted Zone Layout). In the first case the zone allocation table contains fixed numbers of tracks for each zone, their number per zone and the number of sectors per zone track (SPT). Those parameters are calculated once in the most optimal manner during drive model design. There may be differences within a family, if various models use heads or disks from different manufacturers. Firmware versions will also differ because the zone allocation table is stored in ROM.

Adaptive zone allocation tables are used in VANGOPLUS, PANGO, VELOCE, PALO, and MAGMA drives. These tables are designed individually for each drive during its factory test. The number of tracks in a zone and zone SPT will be calculated during the test based on physical parameters of drive heads and the condition of magnetic surfaces;

4, In VICTOR drive family logical block addressing (LBA) is cylinder-based: first the sectors of the zero cylinder are numbered for all heads, then the sectors of the first cylinder for all heads, and so on.

In PUMA, VICTORPLUS, VERNA, VERNALITE, VANGO, VELOCE, PALO, and MAGMA drive families the addressing is zone-based, i.e. first all sectors of the zero zone for the zero head are addressed, then all sectors of the zero zone for the first head and so on for all heads, then all sectors of the first zone for the zero head, then the sectors of the first zone for the first head, etc;

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