Cheapest 1TB Hard Drives - Live $/TB Prices

All 1TB drives ranked by $/TB

New vs refurbished at 1TB

At the 1TB capacity tier, the refurbished market typically prices 20-30% below new drive equivalents. Right now, the cheapest new 1TB drive is Seagate BarraCuda 1TB ST1000DMZ10 at $89.99/TB and the cheapest refurbished is HP ST31000640SS 1TB SAS at $14.99/TB — a 83% discount for refurb. For backup repositories, RAID 6 capacity tiers, and any deployment with redundancy, refurbished is the right answer. For primary production storage and single-drive deployments, the new drive premium buys peace of mind through full manufacturer warranty and zero accumulated wear.

Established refurbished resellers like MDD MaxDigitalData source from decommissioned hyperscale datacenters and provide 3-5 year reseller warranties at this capacity. Run smartctl on arrival, deploy in RAID 6 with at least one hot spare, and monitor SMART attributes continuously.

Best use cases for 1TB drives

Replacing a failed drive in an existing small array, boot mirrors, and lab hardware. Not a sensible capacity for new storage — the per-drive overhead of an enclosure bay far outweighs the low unit price.

RAID guidance: RAID 1 mirror only. At this capacity the array overhead dominates and parity adds nothing worth having. Use the RAID Capacity Planner to calculate exact usable capacity for any configuration at this capacity.

Power draw: 1TB enterprise SATA drives typically draw 6-9W active, 4-5W idle. Six 1TB drives in a NAS array consume approximately 35-55W active — modest by enterprise standards but meaningful for home electricity costs over years of operation.

When to size up: If your projected capacity growth over the next 24 months would exceed the array's usable capacity at 1TB drives, sizing up one tier (5TB or larger) defers the next expansion cycle and typically improves $/TB. Sizing down rarely makes financial sense unless bay count is the binding constraint.

Is 1TB the right capacity for you?

1TB is a legacy capacity and the market reflects that. New production has effectively stopped at this size in the nearline segment, so almost everything in stock is a datacenter pull. The cheapest listings are 2.5-inch SAS, which need a SAS host bus adapter and a backplane or breakout cable — they will not work in a desktop. 1TB SATA exists but is priced as a retail convenience item rather than as bulk storage, which is why its $/TB is several times worse than a 10TB drive. Buy at this capacity to replace a specific failed drive or to populate lab hardware, not to build storage.

How much can 1TB store?

Concrete capacity examples for a single 1TB drive, before RAID overhead and assuming typical file sizes:

• Photos at 5MB JPEG average: approximately 200,000 images
• RAW photos at 30MB per frame: approximately 33,333 frames
• 1080p movies at 8GB average: approximately 125 films
• 4K HDR movies at 60GB average: approximately 17 films
• TV series seasons (1080p, 30GB): approximately 33 seasons
• Lossless music tracks (FLAC, 30MB): approximately 33,333 tracks
• Office documents (200KB avg): approximately 5,000,000 files

Real-world usable capacity in a RAID 6 array is lower than the raw drive capacity — see the RAID section below for usable capacity examples at common drive counts.

1TB in a RAID array

Usable capacity examples for 1TB drives at common deployment sizes, using RAID 5 (single parity, one drive of overhead) and RAID 6 (dual parity, two drives of overhead):

At 1TB per drive, RAID 5 remains acceptable for non-critical deployments because rebuild windows are short and URE risk is manageable. For production storage, RAID 6 still provides better protection at modest capacity cost.

Rebuild time for a 1TB drive in a RAID 6 array typically runs 3-5 hours at typical hardware-accelerated rebuild speeds (assuming the array is not heavily loaded with production traffic during rebuild). Throughout the rebuild window, the array operates at degraded performance and reduced redundancy. Hot spare drives that automatically begin rebuild on first failure shrink the exposure window to minutes rather than hours. Use the RAID Capacity Planner to model rebuild times for your specific drive count and array configuration.

Power and running cost of 1TB drives

Enterprise 1TB SATA hard drives typically draw 6-10W during active read/write and 4-5W at idle. For a 6-drive array running 24/7 with mixed activity, expect approximately 35-55W of continuous power draw plus the host system's overhead. At typical US residential electricity rates of $0.16/kWh, a 45W array costs about $63 per year in electricity; at commercial rates of $0.10/kWh, about $39 per year.

Fewer high-capacity drives dramatically reduce power consumption per terabyte stored. Six 1TB drives delivering 4TB usable in RAID 6 consume the same power as six 4TB drives delivering only 16TB usable — but at 100% of the capacity per watt. For datacenter and homelab deployments where electricity is a meaningful operating cost, sizing up to 1TB drives delivers better power efficiency per TB stored alongside the $/TB advantage. The TCO Calculator models the full 5-year power cost for any drive configuration.

1TB price history and 2026 trends

Enterprise hard drive prices have risen approximately 46-50% since September 2025, driven by AI infrastructure demand absorbing hyperscale HDD production, US import tariffs adding 10-13% to landed costs, and NAND shortages forcing buyers from SSD to HDD for capacity tiers. Smaller capacity tiers including 1TB have seen more modest 15-30% increases as they are less directly consumed by hyperscale AI workloads. Refurbished supply at this capacity remains ample from older hyperscale decommissions. Read the full analysis in Hard Drive Prices Up 50% in 2026.

Most storage analysts expect elevated pricing to persist through 2026 and into 2027. New NAND capacity takes 2-3 years to qualify and ramp; hyperscale AI buildouts are not expected to moderate before late 2026. For 1TB buyers in particular, the practical procurement advice is to purchase current requirements at today's prices rather than deferring in anticipation of price normalization. Monitor live $/TB on this page and on the cheapest per TB tracker for the current best deal at this capacity.

Related capacities

Frequently asked questions