We do not predict prices. This page shows where used and recertified drives prices actually are, what our own daily snapshots have done, the supply-side facts we have cited, and a directional outlook that carries the date it applies to and the list of things that would prove it wrong. As of 2026-08-18 the floor is $14.99/TB across 339 in-stock listings.
Live figures updated · refreshed every 4-5 hours · outlook reviewed monthly
The like-for-like figure is not uniform: it runs from +47.2% at 3TB to +9.9% at 20TB. Buy at the capacity, not at the average - the per-capacity pages carry each verdict with its own numbers.
Daily average price per TB across all tracked SATA enterprise HDDs, daily floor TB, tracked since 2026-03-23. Live data from the DatacenterDisk price tracker — updates every 2 hours. Window reflects the actual history in our database, not a modeled projection.
Every row says where its numbers came from. Reported rows are figures published by others, cited and dated - we did not measure them. Measured rows are our own series, computed from our daily snapshots. Mixing the two without saying which is which is how a page ends up citing itself.
| What | Then | Now | Provenance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Our tracked used and recertified drives floor, per TB | $11.33 (2026-03-23) | $12.50 (2026-08-18) | Measured by us |
As of 2026-08-18, 59 of 262 scored used and recertified drives sit above their own recent typical level, 160 sit at the cheap end of their own record, and 43 are priced where they usually are. That distribution is the answer to “has waiting been working” - it is a count of badge states, not a price comparison.
In-stock only, cheapest per terabyte first.
| Product | Capacity | Condition | Price | Per TB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP ST31000640SS 1TB SAS | 1TB | Refurb | $14.99 | $14.99 | Buy |
| HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G | 4TB | New | $59.99 | $15.00 | Buy |
| HGST HUS724030ALS640 3TB SAS 6G | 3TB | Refurb | $45.39 | $15.13 | Buy |
| Seagate 3TB Enterprise Capacity SAS 6G | 3TB | Refurb | $53.95 | $17.98 | Buy |
| HGST HUS726040ALS210 4TB SAS 12G | 4TB | Refurb | $72.52 | $18.13 | Buy |
| MDD 6TB SAS 12G 7200RPM | 6TB | Refurb | $109.99 | $18.33 | Buy |
| HP 695842-001 4TB SAS 6G LFF | 4TB | New | $78.67 | $19.67 | Buy |
| HGST HUS724030ALA640 3TB SATA Enterprise | 3TB | Refurb | $59.99 | $20.00 | Buy |
Every figure in this section is read from our own catalogue at the moment you loaded the page, and it is a LEVELS observation rather than a rate. The floor is the single cheapest in-stock listing per terabyte; it can move because one cheap listing appeared or vanished, without the market having done anything. That is why percentage changes on this site come from a matched-model index that compares each listing against its own prior price, and never from comparing one day's floor to another's.
As of 2026-08-18, the floor sits at $14.99/TB and the median across 339 in-stock listings at $42.14/TB. The gap between those two is worth as much as either number on its own: a floor far below the median means the cheap end is one or two listings deep, and a floor close to it means the whole catalogue is priced tightly together.
The two condition tracks price separately and we never merge them. New stock starts at $15.00/TB and the refurbished track at $14.99/TB. A refurbished floor well below the new one is the ordinary state of this market rather than a bargain signal, and scoring one against the other would manufacture a discount that does not exist.
The picks table further down carries the same data at row level, in stock only, so a reader who decides to act can do so without leaving the page. It never shows an out-of-stock row, which is why you will not find an empty price cell anywhere in this cluster.
Our snapshots for this category begin on 2026-03-23 and run to 2026-08-18, which is 149 days of daily observations. That window is stated because a trend without its window is not checkable, and because 149 days is a real but modest history - long enough to show a level, short enough that a single unusual month shapes it.
Over the most recent 30 days of that series - 2026-07-19 to 2026-08-18 - the daily floor moved from $11.33/TB to $12.50/TB, a change of +10.3%. Read that as what the cheapest listing did, not as what the market did.
The chart is a levels series by design. A levels chart answers 'what does the cheap end cost' and it answers it honestly; it does not answer 'has the market moved', because a single listing entering or leaving changes it. Both questions are legitimate and they need different instruments, so we do not use one chart to imply the other.
This is the page on this site that rests most completely on our own measurements, and it is worth saying why plainly: there is no public price index for the used enterprise drive market. Nobody publishes a recertified-versus-new spread, because the products are heterogeneous, the sellers are fragmented and the listings turn over constantly. What follows is computed from our own catalogue on every page load, and where we rely on an outside fact it is the same locked supply list every page in this cluster uses.
The used market is a DERIVATIVE of the new market with a delay. Drives reach it when datacentre operators decommission fleets on a refresh cycle, which means today's used supply was bought three to five years ago and its volume was decided then. That is the single most important structural fact about this category: used supply cannot respond to current demand. When new-drive prices rise, the used market does not get more drives - it gets more buyers.
The new-side constraint is therefore the thing to watch. Reported nearline lead times in the region of 52 weeks, a major manufacturer reported sold out of nearline capacity, and HAMR raising capacity per drive rather than drives per month all describe a new market that cannot clear demand quickly. Every buyer that market turns away arrives here.
The delay cuts both ways, and this is what makes the category forecastable at all in directional terms. Relief in the new market propagates to the used market slowly and weakly, because the used supply schedule was fixed years earlier. A buyer waiting for used prices to fall because new prices fell is waiting on a mechanism that is genuinely slow.
Directionally, as of the date above: the conditions that make recertified drives good value have not reversed, and the mechanism that would reverse them is slow by construction. Used supply is set by decommissioning schedules fixed years ago and cannot expand in response to demand, while the new-side constraint that pushes buyers into this market remains in place.
That is a statement about the mechanism rather than about a price. We will not print a figure for what a recertified terabyte costs in six months, and the spread figures on this page are recomputed live rather than quoted, precisely so that nobody - including us - can mistake a measurement taken once for a standing fact.
For a holder rather than a buyer, the same mechanism reads differently. Drives already in your possession are in a market where supply cannot easily grow and the new-side alternative is constrained. That is not advice to sell, and the value of a specific drive depends on its model, capacity and hours far more than on any market-wide direction.
Most pages about used drives assume the reader is buying. The other side of this market is worth addressing, because the same mechanism answers a different question. If you hold decommissioned enterprise drives, you are holding an asset in a market whose supply is fixed by decisions taken years ago and whose demand is fed by a constrained new market.
What we will not do is tell you to hold or sell, because that depends on the specific drives and on your alternative use for the money, neither of which this page knows. What we can tell you is what a given model is currently worth against comparable listings, which is a measurement rather than advice - our used-drive valuation tool does exactly that, model by model.
The one general point worth making is about timing risk in the other direction. A drive's value declines with its capacity's obsolescence far more predictably than it rises with market tightness. Holding a 4TB drive for a better market is a bet against the capacity curve, and that curve has beaten holders consistently for as long as this market has existed.
This is the section that makes the rest of the page worth citing. An outlook with no stated falsifiers cannot be wrong, and a claim that cannot be wrong is not information. Here is exactly what we are watching, and what each of these moving would mean:
The matched spread itself narrowing across weeks. It is recomputed on every load and shown above with its model count; a sustained fall toward zero would mean the new market is reaching down into the used market's price band, which is the clearest single signal that this category's advantage is eroding.
Nearline lead times shortening in reported industry figures. That is the upstream condition feeding buyers into the used market, and it easing would reduce the demand side here before it changed anything about supply.
A manufacturer moving off allocation for nearline capacity. That would change the mechanism setting new-drive prices, and the used market takes its demand overflow from exactly that.
The number of capacities where new undercuts recertified growing. We report that as a count rather than an average precisely so it can be watched; it moving decisively would indicate new supply reaching the price levels used stock occupies.
A step change in decommissioning volume. This is the only thing that would genuinely expand used supply, and it would show up first as in-stock breadth on the recertified track rather than as a price move.
We check these monthly and publish the result as a dated check-in whether or not the read changed. An outlook that never revises is not being tested.
Decide which of the two figures above answers your question before you act on either. If you want a specific enterprise model, the like-for-like figure is yours: it is what that drive costs recertified against new. If you want the cheapest terabyte you can get regardless of what it is, the shelf position is yours, and at several capacities that answer is currently new rather than recertified.
Then buy at the capacity rather than in the abstract. The verdict differs by capacity in our own data - recertified wins decisively at some, loses at others - and the per-capacity pages carry the current answer for each with its own numbers rather than inheriting a site-wide average.
Whatever you buy, verify it on arrival. Read SMART before the drive holds anything you care about, reject non-zero pending or uncorrectable sectors, run a full long self-test, and deploy with dual parity. The discount on a recertified drive is priced on the assumption that you check what you received, and a buyer who does not check is not getting the deal they think they are.
These are the things that would change the outlook above. They are checked in every monthly edition, and the edition says so whether or not any of them moved.
Every monthly edition, newest first, archived rather than overwritten. Each one opens by stating what the previous edition said and what our data actually did - an archive that never grades itself is a blog, not a record.
The main forecast page covers the method and the hard drive picture in full · what counts as a good price · the cheapest per terabyte right now · hard drive forecast · SSD forecast · server RAM forecast · PS5 SSD forecast · external drive forecast · the storage crisis tracker follows the category-level picture.
Two answers, because there are two questions, and both figures are computed live above. Comparing each model against its own price in the other condition - the like-for-like discount - gives the saving on the drive you actually want. Comparing the cheapest recertified listing against the cheapest new one gives you something different: at most capacities those are different products, a consumer SATA drive against a retired enterprise SAS unit, so subtracting them measures the capacity's product mix as much as the condition. We report the like-for-like figure as the headline with its model count, and the shelf position as a count of capacities rather than an average.
The mechanism that would bring them down is unusually slow, and that is the most useful thing we can tell you. Used supply arrives from datacentre decommissioning schedules set three to five years ago, so it cannot expand in response to demand the way a manufactured product can. Relief in the new market propagates here weakly and late. We will not print a date or a figure, and the falsifiers section above states exactly what we are watching instead.
If you need the capacity, the case for buying is stronger in this category than in most, because the supply side genuinely cannot respond to demand. If you are speculating on a fall, watch the matched spread on this page across weeks rather than the headlines - it is the direct measurement of whether the advantage is eroding, and it is recomputed every time this page loads. What you should not do is wait for used prices to fall because you read that new prices might: that transmission is slow and partial by construction.
No, and the count above says how often it is not right now. At several capacities the cheapest new listing currently undercuts the cheapest recertified one - usually because the new stock at that capacity includes consumer drives built to a lower price point than the enterprise hardware that dominates the recertified side. Each capacity page works through its own numbers and gives the verdict that follows from them, including the capacities where the answer is to buy new.
That depends on the specific drives and on what else you would do with the money, neither of which a forecast page can know. What we can offer is a measurement rather than advice: our valuation tool prices a given model against comparable current listings. The one general caution is that a drive's value falls with its capacity's obsolescence more reliably than it rises with market tightness, so holding a small-capacity drive for a better market is a bet against a curve that has beaten holders consistently.
Our own catalogue, recomputed on every request - there is no public index for the recertified-versus-new spread, which is why this page exists. The supply-side facts are the same locked list used across this forecast cluster, published and attributed elsewhere on the site. Nothing on this page is a hardcoded copy of a measurement taken once: the spread figures in particular drift as stock changes, and a stale copy of one would be worse than no figure at all.