The storage price crunch, in data

Since Aug 24, the typical NAS hard drive has gone from $31/TB to $62/TB - up 100%. Prices sat flat for over a year, then roughly doubled as the AI datacenter buildout swallowed hard-drive supply.

$30 $35 $40 $45 $50 $55 $60 $65 Jul 24 Dec 24 May 25 Nov 25 Apr 26 Sep 26

Monthly median $/TB across CA NAS hard drives (8TB and up), from our daily price history - 34 drives in the latest month.

Fleet failure rate

1.41% avg AFR across all Backblaze-tracked models.

CMR vs SMR

156 CMR (RAID-safe) · 16 SMR (avoid in arrays).

Coverage

12 capacity tiers with a live CA price.

Best value ($/TB) by capacity

TBCheapest driveTech$/TBPrice
24 ST24000NT002 Seagate IronWolf Pro CMR $36.20 C$1,190
22 ST22000NM001E Seagate Exos X22 CMR $36.20 C$1,091
20 ST20000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro CMR $36.32 C$995
18 MG09ACA18TE Toshiba MG09 CMR $21.80 C$538
16 ST16000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro CMR $34.22 C$750
14 MG07SCA14TE Toshiba MG07 CMR $41.38 C$794
12 ST12000VN0008 Seagate IronWolf CMR $36.20 C$595
10 ST10000VN000 Seagate IronWolf CMR $43.73 C$599
8 HUS728T8TALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC320 CMR $31.49 C$345
6 ST6000DM003 Seagate BarraCuda SMR $41.37 C$340
4 ST4000VX016 Seagate SkyHawk CMR $35.15 C$193
2 WD20EZAZ WD Blue SMR $76.47 C$210

Most reliable (lowest AFR)

DriveAFRSample
WUH722222ALE6L4 22TB 0.47% 45,556
MG11ACA24TE 24TB 0.50% 9,597
ST16000NM001G 16TB 0.55% 34,998
ST16000NM000J 16TB 0.72% 463
WUH721414ALE6L4 14TB 0.78% 8,548

Highest AFR (watch list)

DriveAFRSample
HUH721212ALE604 12TB 3.27% 25,045
ST24000NM002H 24TB 3.04% 9,482
MG08ACA16Tx 16TB 1.41% 50,539
MG09ACA16TE 16TB 1.30% 893
MG07ACA14TE 14TB 1.29% 37,907

Biggest price drops (CA)

DriveWasNowDrop
ST4000VN006 4TB C$305 C$265 -13%
WD40EFPX 4TB C$380 C$350 -8%
SB-RKT5-2TB 2TB C$704 C$518 -26%
WDS200T1X0M 2TB C$602 C$530 -12%
WDS200T3X0E 2TB C$804 C$647 -20%
CT1000T705SSD3 1TB C$410 C$380 -7%
MZ-V9P1T0 1TB C$410 C$380 -7%

See the live deals feed for the full list.

Method

Failure rates are recomputed from Backblaze's Drive Stats (drive-days and failures) - source: Backblaze thru Q2 2026 - not vendor MTBF numbers; models Backblaze does not track use the manufacturer's series spec. Prices are the cheapest in-stock new Amazon offer per drive in CA, refreshed daily, with $/TB in USD for cross-currency ranking. Explore it all in the full filterable table.