NAS Drive Price & Reliability Report
October 2026 · US prices · 178 drives tracked
Updated October 13, 2026 · refreshed automatically every day.
Auto-generated from our live catalogue: real failure rates from Backblaze lifetime 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 $45/TB - up 117%. Prices sat flat for over a year, then roughly doubled as the AI datacenter buildout swallowed hard-drive supply.
Monthly median $/TB across US NAS hard drives (8TB and up), from our daily price history - 44 drives in the latest month.
1.41% avg AFR across all Backblaze-tracked models.
162 CMR (RAID-safe) · 16 SMR (avoid in arrays).
15 capacity tiers with a live US price.
Best value ($/TB) by capacity
| TB | Cheapest drive | Tech | $/TB | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | ST30000NM004K Seagate Exos M | CMR | $46.67 | $1,400 |
| 26 | WD261KRYZ WD Gold | CMR | $47.73 | $1,241 |
| 24 | MG11ACA24TE Toshiba MG11 | CMR | $41.46 | $995 |
| 22 | WUH722222ALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC570 | CMR | $37.73 | $830 |
| 20 | WD202KRYZ WD Gold | CMR | $36.46 | $729 |
| 18 | WUH721818ALE6L4 WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | CMR | $38.58 | $694 |
| 16 | MG08ACA16Tx Toshiba MG08 | CMR | $38.03 | $608 |
| 14 | MG07SCA14TE Toshiba MG07 | CMR | $39.21 | $549 |
| 12 | ST12000VN0008 Seagate IronWolf | CMR | $35.75 | $429 |
| 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 | $50.75 | $203 |
| 3 | ST3000DM007 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $61.89 | $186 |
| 2 | ST2000DM008 Seagate BarraCuda | SMR | $75.48 | $151 |
Most reliable (lowest AFR)
| Drive | AFR | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| MG11ACA24TE 24TB | 0.50% | 9,620 |
| WUH721414ALE6L4 14TB | 0.54% | 8,635 |
| WUH722222ALE6L4 22TB | 0.58% | 45,665 |
| WUH721816ALE6Lx 16TB | 0.64% | 29,797 |
| ST16000NM001G 16TB | 0.68% | 35,100 |
Highest AFR (watch list)
| Drive | AFR | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| ST24000NM002H 24TB | 3.24% | 9,631 |
| HUH721212ALE604 12TB | 1.96% | 25,489 |
| ST14000NM001G 14TB | 1.38% | 10,498 |
| MG08ACA16Tx 16TB | 1.29% | 51,095 |
| MG09ACA16TE 16TB | 1.29% | 905 |
Biggest price drops (US)
| Drive | Was | Now | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| ST20000NT001 20TB | $880 | $830 | -6% |
| WD221KRYZ 22TB | $1,130 | $1,067 | -6% |
| ST10000VN000 10TB | $532 | $500 | -6% |
| WD181KRYZ 18TB | $991 | $918 | -8% |
| WD6005FFBX 6TB | $506 | $315 | -38% |
| WD8001PURP 8TB | $530 | $450 | -15% |
| WD6004FRYZ 6TB | $453 | $400 | -12% |
| ST4000VN006 4TB | $321 | $275 | -15% |
| ST2000DM008 2TB | $165 | $151 | -8% |
| WDS400T4B0E 4TB | $500 | $450 | -10% |
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 lifetime 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.