Part number: 861754-B21 — decoded, with sibling variants and the warranty check.
Before you buy: this is a SAS drive
SAS drives do not plug into a normal SATA motherboard port. You need a SAS host bus adapter or a backplane that speaks SAS - an LSI/Broadcom HBA in IT mode is the usual answer. A SATA drive will run on a SAS controller, but not the other way round. HBA and IT-mode guide
The HP 6TB SAS Midline LFF Enterprise is a 6TB SAS-12G enterprise drive at $42.41/TB - Verify recording technology before use in RAID. New unit with full 5-year warranty.
Against every other drive we have an in-stock price for today, this one is cheaper per tb than 40% of them (97 of 241). The cheapest we can currently buy is $14.99/TB; the middle of the market is $38.12/TB.
These are third-party figures about the retail market as a whole, quoted and dated. They are not our own measurements and they do not describe this specific drive.
Yes. At our last check it was $254.45 ($42.41 per terabyte at its 6TB capacity), sold new under ASIN B06WRNYQMH. Amazon sets the final price at checkout.
This listing (861754-B21, ASIN B06WRNYQMH) carries no renewed, recertified, refurbished or pulled claim in its title, and Amazon reports it as new. On this site that is what "new" means: sold as factory-new. The stored warranty on this row is 5 years, as the listing states it.
Use Case Scenarios
🏠
Home & SMB NAS
Building a mid-range NAS for media, backups and file sharing.
✓ Excellent fit
Verify CMR recording before using in RAID. New drives come with full warranty.
💾
Backup Server / Veeam Target
Dedicated backup storage for Veeam, Commvault, or NetBackup.
✓ Excellent fit
6TB SAS drives are ideal for backup targets. Dual-port SAS suits dual-path backup infrastructure.
🏗️
Virtualization Host Storage
VM images and snapshots on Proxmox, VMware or Hyper-V.
~ Good fit
Suitable for VM storage where workloads are not IOPS-intensive. SAS dual-port suits HA cluster shared storage. Consider NVMe cache for latency-sensitive VMs.
Maintenance & Troubleshooting
Maintenance Checklist
On installCheck SMART baseline on arrival
Run smartctl -a /dev/sdX and record: Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Power_On_Hours, Spin_Retry_Count. Establishes baseline for future comparison.
MonthlyRun SMART short self-test
smartctl -t short /dev/sdX — takes 1-2 minutes, catches most developing issues. Schedule during off-peak.
QuarterlyRun SMART long self-test
smartctl -t long /dev/sdX — full surface scan, takes 3 hours for 6TB. Any test failure is grounds for immediate replacement.
QuarterlyCheck RAID array health
Verify no degraded drives. A degraded array with no hot spare is one failure from data loss. Check mdstat or controller UI.
AnnuallyVerify drive firmware version
Check HP support site for firmware updates. Some versions have known bugs affecting integrity.
Every 3-5 yearsPlan proactive replacement
Enterprise HDDs have higher failure rates after year 4-5. At 6TB per drive, budget for replacements before failures occur.
Troubleshooting Guide
Cause: HBA not initialized, SAS expander issue, cable fault, or incompatible controller.
Fix: Verify HBA firmware. Check SAS topology with sas2ircu or StorCLI. Test with known-good cable. Confirm drive is SAS not SATA.