3TB NAS Hard Drives - Live Prices

What 3TB costs in a NAS today

Nothing at 3TB has a buyable offer right now, so there is no live rate to quote. The table above shows what we track at this capacity; it fills in on its own when stock returns.

What 3TB drives actually build

A NAS buyer is choosing a configuration rather than a drive, and the number that decides it is usable capacity after parity. At 3TB per drive that works out as follows, before filesystem overhead and before you leave the headroom a pool needs to stay healthy:

Those totals are drives only. The enclosure, the memory and the drive bays you leave empty for a future expansion are separate costs, and the last of those is the one people forget: filling every bay on day one means the next upgrade is a full replacement rather than an addition. Our RAID planner works through the configurations properly, and replacing drives with larger ones covers the upgrade path when you get there.

Recording technology at this capacity

We have not verified the recording technology for the current 3TB stock, so the column above reads unverified rather than guessing. For an array that is worth resolving before you buy - a shingled drive can turn a rebuild into a multi-day event. Paste the exact model into our CMR or SMR resolver and it will answer from the manufacturer's own documentation.

Is 3TB the right rung?

At 3TB rebuild windows are short enough that single parity remains defensible in a small array, which is the main practical advantage this rung has over the larger ones. The trade is the opposite one: more drives for the same total capacity means more bays consumed, more power drawn, and more units that can fail.

The general rule is that cost per terabyte improves as you go up the ladder until it does not, and where it stops improving moves with the market rather than sitting at a fixed capacity. Comparing the live rate on this page against the neighbouring rungs is the only reliable way to find that point on the day you are buying.