NAS Drive Price & Reliability Report
September 2026 · US 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 24, the typical NAS hard drive has gone from $21/TB to $44/TB - up 114%. Prices sat flat for over a year, then roughly doubled as the AI datacenter buildout swallowed hard-drive supply.
Monthly median $/TB across US NAS hard drives (8TB and up), from our daily price history - 49 drives in the latest month.
1.41% avg AFR across all Backblaze-tracked models.
156 CMR (RAID-safe) · 16 SMR (avoid in arrays).
15 capacity tiers with a live US price.
Best value ($/TB) by capacity
| TB | Cheapest drive | Tech | $/TB | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | WUH722626ALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC590 | CMR | $48.86 | $1,270 |
| 24 | ST24000NT002 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $35.83 | $860 |
| 22 | MG10AFA22TE Toshiba MG10 | CMR | $36.18 | $796 |
| 20 | ST20000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $36.00 | $720 |
| 18 | ST18000NM004J Seagate Exos X18 | CMR | $33.28 | $599 |
| 16 | ST16000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $36.25 | $580 |
| 14 | MG07SCA14TE Toshiba MG07 | CMR | $35.36 | $495 |
| 12 | ST12000NT001 Seagate IronWolf Pro | CMR | $38.33 | $460 |
| 10 | ST10000NM019B Seagate Exos 7E10 | CMR | $43.19 | $432 |
| 8 | WD80EFPX WD Red Plus | CMR | $44.37 | $355 |
| 6 | WD60EZAX WD Blue | CMR | $40.83 | $245 |
| 4 | ST4000VX016 Seagate SkyHawk | CMR | $45.00 | $180 |
| 3 | ST3000DM007 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $61.89 | $186 |
| 2 | ST2000DM008 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $72.69 | $145 |
| 1 | WD1005FBYZ WD Gold | CMR | $149.00 | $149 |
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 (US)
| Drive | Was | Now | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| MG09ACA18TE 18TB | $699 | $659 | -6% |
| ST16000VE002 16TB | $725 | $683 | -6% |
| ST12000VE003 12TB | $564 | $515 | -9% |
| ST4000VX016 4TB | $215 | $180 | -16% |
| WD101EFBX 10TB | $530 | $500 | -6% |
| ST10000VN000 10TB | $532 | $500 | -6% |
| WD242KRYZ 24TB | $1,368 | $1,213 | -11% |
| WD4004FRYZ 4TB | $290 | $245 | -16% |
| ST4000NT001 4TB | $280 | $250 | -11% |
| WD6005FFBX 6TB | $438 | $387 | -12% |
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 US, refreshed daily, with $/TB in USD for cross-currency ranking. Explore it all in the full filterable table.