I compiled a list of 167 hard disk drives worth buying - here are six things
I found out

Date:
Sat, 20 Dec 2025 19:30:00 +0000

Description:
My in-depth look at 167 hard disk drives shows why capacity, durability, and price per TB keep HDDs relevant, despite widespread SSD adoption.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Hard drives still matter where capacity, cost efficiency and durability outweigh raw speed Most modern hard drives are built for data centers, servers and specialized storage roles Consumer hard drives are now rare, while
enterprise, NAS and video drives dominate

Hard disk drives are often written off as legacy tech, but a closer look at what is still on sale tells a different story.

After compiling a detailed list of 167 of the best hard disk drives worth buying, six clear points emerged about who is still making HDDs, what theyre building, and who theyre actually for.

The first thing which stands out relates to brand. Western Digital has more drives on the list than anyone else, with 66 models spanning consumer, NAS, enterprise, and specialist categories. That range stretches from WD Blue consumer drives to WD Gold and Ultrastar models designed for data centers. Today's best hard disk drive deals

This 3.5-inch NAS hard drive is built for multi-bay systems. It uses CMR recording, spins at 7,200RPM, connects over SATA 6Gb/s, and includes a 512MB cache. Its designed for continuous operation and heavier workloads in professional or small business NAS environments, with reliability features. View Deal

This 3.5-inch NAS HDD is for home and small business storage. It spins at 7,200 RPM, uses CMR recording, and offers SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity. Its built for reliable, continuous multi-bay NAS use under heavier workloads. View Deal

If you don't require massive amounts of storage, the BarraCuda 8TB may suit you fine. The 3.5-inch internal hard drive spins at 5,400 RPM, connects via SATA 6 Gb/s and includes a 256 MB cache. Its aimed at general storage use in computers. View Deal

Another lower capacity HDD, the 8TB WD Blue spins at 5,640 RPM, uses SATA 6 Gb/s and includes a 256 MB cache. Its designed for everyday desktop storage. View Deal

Built for multi-bay storage systems, Toshibas N300 18TB NAS drive uses CMR recording, spins at 7,200 RPM, offers SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity and a 512 MB cache. Its designed for reliable, continuous operation under heavy workloads in home, small business, and enterprise NAS environments. View Deal

This 24TB enterprise-grade internal HDD offers 7200 RPM performance and SATA
6 Gb/s connectivity. Its built for heavy-duty, always-on data centre and server environments, offering high capacity, reliability and a 2.5 million-hour MTBF. View Deal 8TB is the new baseline

My second takeaway concerns capacity. Seagate is the king of the high end drives, offering six models above 30TB, including multiple Exos M and Exos X variants that go far beyond what most people associate with spinning disks.

No other manufacturer comes close. While HDDs have disappeared from many consumer devices, capacity growth at the top end is still hugely important.

Capacity clustering tells its own story. 8TB is the most common size on the list, appearing 21 times, followed closely by 12TB with 20 entries.

These capacities show up repeatedly in families like WD Red Plus, Seagate IronWolf, and Toshiba N300. Drives below 8TB are now all but obsolete in new 3.5-inch models.

The fourth finding likely wont come as a huge surprise. Almost half of the models, 80 in total, are enterprise drives designed for data centers and large-scale storage.

Product lines such as Seagate Exos, WD Ultrastar, and Toshiba MG dominate
this category, and it's where most HDD development effort is now focused, rather than on everyday desktops.

The fifth takeaway reveals a more focused audience. There are 43 NAS-specific drives , including Seagate IronWolf and IronWolf Pro, WD Red Plus and Red
Pro, and Toshibas N300 range. These are built for always-on systems in home servers and small businesses.

Surveillance drives are far less common, with only 17 models dedicated to video workloads, such as WD Purple and Seagate SkyHawk AI.

Interestingly, only 10 drives on the long list are aimed at mainstream consumers and Toshiba is the only manufacturer still treating hard drives as performance hardware. If offers 15 models in its X300 and X300 Pro lines for high-performance desktops and workstations rather than everyday PCs.

Its clear that while HDDs havent disappeared, as SSDs took over speed-driven tasks, spinning disks have now settled into roles where capacity, durability, and cost per TB matter the most.

A quick note on the list. It excludes all hard disk drives below 8TB, which are now all but obsolete in new 3.5-inch models. It also only includes 3.5-inch drives, not 2.5-inch ones. Drives from professional refurbishers or relabeled models sold under brands like HP or Dell were left out. Where multiple SKUs of the same drive existed with minor differences such as cache size, encryption, or formatting, only a single representative model was counted. These are the 167 hard disk drives worth buying

Brand

Model

Model ID

Capacity

Segment

Seagate

BarraCuda 8TB

ST8000DM004

8TB

Consumer

Seagate

BarraCuda 16TB

ST16000DM001

16TB

Consumer

Seagate

BarraCuda 20TB

ST20000DM001

20TB

Consumer

Seagate

BarraCuda 24TB

ST24000DM001

24TB

Consumer

Seagate

BarraCuda 28TB

ST28000DM000

28TB

Consumer

Toshiba

MD07 12TB

MD07ACA12T

12TB

Consumer

Toshiba

MD07 14TB

MD07ACA14T

14TB

Consumer

Western Digital

WD Blue 8TB

WD80EAAZ

8TB

Consumer

Western Digital

WD Blue 10TB

WD100EAGZ

10TB

Consumer

Western Digital

WD Blue 12TB

WD120EAGZ

12TB

Consumer

Western Digital

WD Black 8TB

WD8002FZBX

8TB

Performance

Western Digital

WD Black 10TB

WD102FZBX

10TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 8TB

HDWR780XZSTA

8TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 10TB

HDWR71AXZSTA

10TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 12TB

HDWR51CXZSTA

12TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 14TB

HDWR51EUZSVA

14TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 16TB

HDWR51GXZSTA

16TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 18TB

HDWR51JUZSVA

18TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 20TB

HDWR62AXZSTA

20TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 8TB

HDWR780XZSTB

8TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 10TB

HDWR71AXZSTB

10TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 12TB

HDWR51CXZSTB

12TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 14TB

HDWR51EXZSTB

14TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 16TB

HDWR51GXZSTB

16TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 18TB

HDWR51JXZSTB

18TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 20TB

HDWR62AXZSTB

20TB

Performance

Toshiba

X300 Pro 22TB

HDWR62AXZSTB

22TB

Performance

Seagate

IronWolf 8TB

ST8000VN004

8TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf 10TB

ST10000VN000

10TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf 12TB

ST12000VN0008

12TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf 16TB

ST16000VN001

16TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 8TB

ST8000NT001

8TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 12TB

ST12000NT001

12TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 14TB

ST14000NT001

14TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 16TB

ST16000NT001

16TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 18TB

ST18000NT001

18TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 20TB

ST20000NT001

20TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 22TB

ST22000NT001

22TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 24TB

ST24000NT002

24TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 28TB

ST28000NT000

28TB

NAS

Seagate

IronWolf Pro 30TB

ST30000NT011

30TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 8TB

HDWG780XZSTA

8TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 10TB

HDWG71AXZSTA

10TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 12TB

HDWG51CXZSTA

12TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 14TB

HDWG51EXZSTA

14TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 16TB

HDWG51GXZSTA

16TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 18TB

HDWG51JXZSTA

18TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 20TB

HDWG62AXZSTA

20TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 8TB

HDWG780XZSTB

8TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 10TB

HDWG71AXZSTB

10TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 12TB

HDWG51CXZSTB

12TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 14TB

HDWG51EXZSTB

14TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 16TB

HDWG51GXZSTB

16TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 18TB

HDWG51JXZSTB

18TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 20TB

HDWG62AXZSTB

20TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 22TB

HDWG62CXZSTB

22TB

NAS

Toshiba

N300 Pro 24TB

HDWG82EXZSTB

24TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Plus 8TB

WD80EFPX

8TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Plus 10TB

WD101EFBX

10TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Plus 12TB

WD120EFGX

12TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 8TB

WD8005FFBX

8TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 10TB

WD103KFBX

10TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 12TB

WD122KFBX

12TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 14TB

WD142KFGX

14TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 16TB

WD161KFGX

16TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 18TB

WD181KFGX

18TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 20TB

WD202KFGX

20TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 22TB

WD221KFGX

22TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 24TB

WD241KFGX

24TB

NAS

Western Digital

WD Red Pro 26TB

WD260KFGX

26TB

NAS

Seagate

Exos 2X18 16TB

ST16000NM0092

16TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos 2X18 18TB

ST18000NM0092

18TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos 7E10 8TB

ST8000NM018B

8TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos 7E10 10TB

ST10000NM018B

10TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X18 10TB

ST10000NM018G

10TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X18 12TB

ST12000NM000J

12TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X18 14TB

ST14000NM000J

14TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X18 16TB

ST16000NM000J

16TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X18 18TB

ST18000NM000J

18TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X20 18TB

ST18000NM003D

18TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X20 20TB

ST20000NM007D

20TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X24 12TB

ST12000NM002H

12TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X24 16TB

ST16000NM002H

16TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X24 20TB

ST20000NM002H

20TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos X24 24TB

ST24000NM002H

24TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos M 28TB

ST28000NM003K

28TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos M 30TB

ST30000NM004K

30TB

Enterprise

Seagate

Exos M 32TB

ST32000NM003K

32TB

Enterprise

Seagate
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