The best price per terabyte today is the HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G at $59.99 ($15.00/TB), as of 2026-08-19.
Recomputed every refresh · last updated · 120 listings in the field
The HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G takes it at $15.00/TB against the runner-up's $19.67/TB - a margin of $4.67/TB, or 31.1%. That gap is computed, not asserted: it is the arithmetic difference between the two cheapest qualifying listings we hold, and it is the whole of the reason one is above the other.
It sits in a field of 120 qualifying listings. It is new stock, CMR recording, SAS-6G. That is a wide margin - the winner is not narrowly ahead, it is in a different price band from the rest of the field.
Best = lowest cost per terabyte among in-stock, CMR-verified, known-brand drives of 4TB or larger, sold new, any interface. Not a benchmark ranking - this is the cheapest terabyte that is fit to buy.
Most "best drive" pages do not tell you what best meant, which makes them impossible to argue with and therefore impossible to trust. Ours is one sentence and you can reject it: if you would rather optimise for warranty length, for a specific manufacturer, or for the lowest absolute price rather than the lowest price per unit, the full field is ranked below and you can take a different row knowing exactly what you are trading.
What the criterion deliberately excludes: any drive whose recording technology we could not confirm - unknown is not treated as CMR, any seller we do not recognise, and anything out of stock at the moment the page rendered.
| # | Drive | Capacity | Price | Per TB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WINNER | HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6GSAS | 4TB | $59.99 | $15.00 | Buy |
| 2 | HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G LFFSAS | 4TB | $78.67 | $19.67 | Buy |
| 3 | HGST HUS726040ALS210 4TB SAS 12GSAS | 4TB | $79.99 | $20.00 | Buy |
| 4 | MDD 18TB SAS 12G 7200RPM EnterpriseSAS | 18TB | $389.99 | $21.67 | Buy |
| 5 | MDD 10TB SAS 12G 7200RPMSAS | 10TB | $229.99 | $23.00 | Buy |
SAS rows are marked. A SAS drive will not plug into a desktop motherboard or a consumer NAS - it needs a host bus adapter and, in most chassis, a backplane. They are eligible on this page because they are legitimately the cheapest terabytes in the secondary market, and they are flagged because buying one by accident means it does not work at all.
We log the winner only when it CHANGES, and we show the model and the date - not what it cost at the time. A past price attributed to a specific listing is exactly the thing our Amazon display policy does not permit us to render, so the log carries the fact and the date and stops there. That is still the part no written-once article can produce.
Anyone building bulk storage where capacity is the requirement and the interface is negotiable: homelab servers with spare bays, backup targets, archive tiers, and second-hand enterprise chassis that already have a controller.
This is the only page on the site that lets every capacity compete in one ranking, which is the honest way to answer 'what is storage actually costing right now'. It is also the number that moves first when the market moves, because it tracks the floor rather than a segment.
Worth knowing: The winner here is frequently a drive most people cannot install. Read the interface column before acting, and use the NAS crown or a per-capacity verdict if your machine takes SATA only.
The 120 qualifying listings run from $15.00/TB to $95.83/TB, a spread of $80.83/TB between the cheapest and dearest drive that meets the same standard. That spread is worth looking at before you act on the verdict: a tight field means the market has settled and the winner is a few percent ahead of an equivalent product, while a wide one means the drives differ in something the criterion does not capture - usually product line, warranty term or how long the listing has been sitting.
7 brands are represented. More than one manufacturer competing at the same specification is what makes the cheapest listing meaningful rather than incidental. The field mixes SATA and SAS, which are not interchangeable - the SAS rows are flagged in the table and need a controller most machines do not have.
The median listing in this field sits at $47.45/TB, 216% above the winner. Because this page ranks across 15 different capacities, the per-unit figure is doing real work: the cheapest terabyte and the cheapest drive are not the same listing here.
This page ranks across every capacity rather than within one, which changes what the winner means. Within a capacity, the cheapest terabyte is straightforwardly the drive to buy. Across capacities, the cheapest terabyte is frequently a large enterprise drive, an interface most machines cannot take, or both - so the answer needs reading rather than acting on directly.
SAS is the usual reason. Retired enterprise SAS drives are consistently the cheapest terabytes in existence because the supply is large, the drives are sound and the buyer pool is small - most people cannot use them. A SAS drive needs a host bus adapter and usually a backplane. If you have a server with spare bays and a controller, this ranking is pointing at genuinely the best value in storage. If you have a desktop or a consumer NAS, it is pointing at something you cannot plug in.
The second reason is capacity itself. The cheapest terabyte is often found on a large drive, and a large drive is only good value if you need that much. Four terabytes at a great price per terabyte is worse value than eight at a mediocre one if you actually needed eight.
Use this page to understand where the floor is and what sits on it. For a drive you can definitely use, the per-capacity verdicts and the NAS crown apply the interface constraints your hardware actually has.
It is a price-and-fitness answer and nothing more. We do not run a test lab, we publish no read or write figures, and there is no claim anywhere on this page that one drive is faster than another. Ranking storage by speed requires measuring it, and anyone who does should tell you how; we would rather rank on what a catalogue can actually observe every few hours.
It also cannot tell you how a manufacturer handles a warranty claim, how loud a drive is in a room you sit in, or whether a particular batch had a bad year. Those are the things a review is for. What this page does that a review cannot is stay correct: it is recomputed when you load it, and the field it beat is printed underneath so you can see the answer being earned rather than asserted.
This page gives one answer. If you want the full catalogue rather than a verdict, these are the pages that carry it:
Cheapest per TB, full ranking · Every verdict we publish · Where prices are heading · CMR/SMR list
HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G, at $59.99 ($15.00/TB). That is the lowest cost per terabyte among the 120 listings that meet the criteria on this page, read from our catalogue at the moment you loaded it. It is a price-and-fitness verdict rather than a performance one - we run no test lab and this page makes no speed claim about any drive.
We have been logging the winner for this page since 2026-08-19, and every change since then is listed above with its date. The honest answer is that it depends on how deep the field is: a capacity with fifteen competing listings changes hands often, one with three barely moves. That log is the thing a written-once article cannot produce, and it is why this page exists in this form.
Because the criterion is cost per terabyte, not brand reputation, and it is printed on this page precisely so you can disagree with it. Every drive in the field passes a brand gate - we will not name an unrecognised seller as an answer - but among drives that pass, the cheapest terabyte wins. If you value a specific manufacturer's warranty handling or a particular product line, the full field below is ranked and you can pick a different row with the trade-off visible.
No, and this is the most important limitation on the page. We do not benchmark drives, we do not publish read or write figures, and nothing here claims one drive is faster than another. What we can measure is price, availability, capacity, interface and recording technology, so the verdict is built from those. Anyone ranking drives by speed should tell you how they measured; we would rather rank on what we can actually observe.
How much weight the verdict carries. 120 listings meet the criteria right now. That is a deep field: several sellers are competing and the winner earned it against real alternatives.