NAS Drive Price & Reliability Report
September 2026 · IT 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 Aug 25, the typical NAS hard drive has gone from $26/TB to $51/TB - up 99%. Prices sat flat for over a year, then roughly doubled as the AI datacenter buildout swallowed hard-drive supply.
Monthly median $/TB across IT NAS hard drives (8TB and up), from our daily price history - 70 drives in the latest month.
1.41% avg AFR across all Backblaze-tracked models.
156 CMR (RAID-safe) · 16 SMR (avoid in arrays).
15 capacity tiers with a live IT price.
Best value ($/TB) by capacity
| TB | Cheapest drive | Tech | $/TB | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | WUH722626ALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC590 | CMR | $56.51 | €1,360 |
| 24 | ST24000NT002 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $45.86 | €1,019 |
| 22 | MG10AFA22TE Toshiba MG10 | CMR | $46.10 | €939 |
| 20 | WUH722020BLE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC560 | CMR | $31.48 | €583 |
| 18 | MG09SCA18TE Toshiba MG09 | CMR | $29.94 | €499 |
| 16 | ST16000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $47.25 | €700 |
| 14 | HDWR31G Toshiba X300 | CMR | $41.31 | €536 |
| 12 | ST12000VN0008 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $47.70 | €530 |
| 10 | ST10000VN000 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $44.93 | €416 |
| 8 | ST8000VN004 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $47.25 | €350 |
| 6 | WD60EZAX WD Blue | CMR | $40.77 | €227 |
| 4 | ST4000VX016 Seagate SkyHawk | CMR | $52.08 | €193 |
| 3 | WD30EFAX WD Red | SMR | $75.85 | €211 |
| 2 | ST2000DM008 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $70.20 | €130 |
| 1 | ST1000VX013 Seagate SkyHawk | CMR | $136.07 | €126 |
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 (IT)
| Drive | Was | Now | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| WUH721414ALE6L4 14TB | €744 | €579 | -22% |
| ST10000VN000 10TB | €493 | €416 | -16% |
| ST6000VN006 6TB | €299 | €277 | -7% |
| WD60EZAZ 6TB | €450 | €280 | -38% |
| WD181KFGX 18TB | €1,076 | €883 | -18% |
| ST20000NT001 20TB | €1,088 | €997 | -8% |
| HDWG460 6TB | €426 | €350 | -18% |
| WD80EFZZ 8TB | €508 | €469 | -8% |
| WUS721010ALE6L4 10TB | €745 | €645 | -13% |
| ST2000VN003 2TB | €258 | €214 | -17% |
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 IT, refreshed daily, with $/TB in USD for cross-currency ranking. Explore it all in the full filterable table.