NAS Drive Price & Reliability Report
September 2026 · FR prices · 172 drives tracked
Updated September 17, 2026 · refreshed automatically every day.
Auto-generated from our live catalogue: real failure rates from Backblaze thru Q2 2026, and Amazon prices refreshed daily. This page updates itself, so it is always the current snapshot.
The storage price crunch, in data
Since Jul 25, the typical NAS hard drive has gone from $25/TB to $51/TB - up 103%. Prices sat flat for over a year, then roughly doubled as the AI datacenter buildout swallowed hard-drive supply.
Monthly median $/TB across FR NAS hard drives (8TB and up), from our daily price history - 71 drives in the latest month.
1.41% avg AFR across all Backblaze-tracked models.
156 CMR (RAID-safe) · 16 SMR (avoid in arrays).
15 capacity tiers with a live FR price.
Best value ($/TB) by capacity
| TB | Cheapest drive | Tech | $/TB | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | WUH722626ALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC590 | CMR | $54.03 | €1,301 |
| 24 | ST24000NT002 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $45.86 | €1,019 |
| 22 | MG10AFA22TE Toshiba MG10 | CMR | $46.10 | €939 |
| 20 | MG10ACA20TE Toshiba MG10 | CMR | $45.68 | €846 |
| 18 | WD181KRYZ WD Gold | CMR | $42.64 | €711 |
| 16 | WUH721816ALE6Lx WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | CMR | $44.25 | €656 |
| 14 | ST14000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $40.44 | €524 |
| 12 | ST12000VN0008 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $44.09 | €490 |
| 10 | ST10000VN000 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $45.49 | €421 |
| 8 | ST8000VN004 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $50.21 | €372 |
| 6 | WD60EZAX WD Blue | CMR | $40.77 | €227 |
| 4 | ST4000VN006 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $50.14 | €186 |
| 3 | ST3000DM007 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $55.12 | €153 |
| 2 | ST2000DM008 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $75.55 | €140 |
| 1 | ST1000VX013 Seagate SkyHawk | CMR | $157.96 | €146 |
Most reliable (lowest AFR)
| Drive | AFR | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| 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)
| Drive | AFR | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| 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 (FR)
| Drive | Was | Now | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| ST10000VN000 10TB | €490 | €421 | -14% |
| ST16000VE002 16TB | €717 | €676 | -6% |
| ST12000VE003 12TB | €621 | €525 | -15% |
| MG11ACA24TE 24TB | €1,165 | €1,069 | -8% |
| ST10000NT001 10TB | €484 | €452 | -7% |
| WD221KFGX 22TB | €1,058 | €996 | -6% |
| ST4000VN006 4TB | €207 | €186 | -10% |
| ST8000VN004 8TB | €395 | €372 | -6% |
| WD181KFGX 18TB | €1,032 | €868 | -16% |
| ST8000VE001 8TB | €417 | €390 | -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 FR, refreshed daily, with $/TB in USD for cross-currency ranking. Explore it all in the full filterable table.