Every in-stock SkyHawk listing below is compared against its own tracked history in its own condition, not against a list price. Within 3% of the cheap end of its recent record reads AT/NEAR LOW; within 7% of the median reads TYPICAL; more than 7% above reads ELEVATED. The tier label on each row tells you whether the drive is rated for your camera count in the first place.
Verdicts are computed from our own daily snapshots, always against the same drive's own record and never against a manufacturer list price. The only price shown on this page is the current one, with the time we last checked it — we publish the verdict as a label rather than printing past prices. Out-of-stock drives are excluded entirely, and the date beside each badge tells you how long we have been watching that drive.
19 at/near low · 7 typical · 3 elevated · 1 building history
| Model | Capacity | Recording | Price | Verdict | $/TB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST6000VX001 SkyHawk · Used | 6TB | CMR | $190 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $31.67 | Buy |
| ST4000VX007 SkyHawk · Used | 4TB | CMR | $140 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $35.00 | Buy |
| ST10000VE0008 SkyHawk AI · Used | 10TB | CMR | $350 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $35.00 | Buy |
| ST10000VEZ008 SkyHawk AI · Used | 10TB | UNVERIFIED | $350 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $35.00 | Buy |
| ST8000VEZ01 SkyHawk AI · Used | 8TB | UNVERIFIED | $300 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-27 | $37.50 | Buy |
| ST3000VX009 SkyHawk · Used | 3TB | CMR | $118 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $39.47 | Buy |
| ST16000VE000 SkyHawk AI · New | 16TB | CMR | $647 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-24 | $40.47 | Buy |
| ST16000VE002 SkyHawk AI · New | 16TB | CMR | $683 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $42.69 | Buy |
| ST4000VX013 SkyHawk · Used | 4TB | SMR | $175 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $43.75 | Buy |
| ST12000VX0008 SkyHawk · New | 12TB | UNVERIFIED | $534 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $44.54 | Buy |
| ST10000VEZ008 SkyHawk AI · New | 10TB | UNVERIFIED | $474 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-22 | $47.39 | Buy |
| ST6000VX0023 SkyHawk · New | 6TB | UNVERIFIED | $320 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-22 | $53.33 | Buy |
| ST4000VX013 SkyHawk · New | 4TB | SMR | $214 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-22 | $53.49 | Buy |
| ST2000VX015 SkyHawk · Used | 2TB | SMR | $130 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $65.00 | Buy |
| SkyHawk 2.0TB SkyHawk · Used | 2TB | UNVERIFIED | $130 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $65.00 | Buy |
| ST2000VX017 SkyHawk · Used | 2TB | UNVERIFIED | $130 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $65.00 | Buy |
| ST2000VX015 SkyHawk · New | 2TB | SMR | $184 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-20 | $92.18 | Buy |
| SkyHawk 2.0TB SkyHawk · New | 2TB | UNVERIFIED | $187 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-23 | $93.50 | Buy |
| ST3000VX009 SkyHawk · New | 3TB | CMR | $294 | AT/NEAR LOW since 2026-08-22 | $98.15 | Buy |
| ST6000VX001 SkyHawk · Used | 6TB | CMR | $200 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-20 | $33.33 | Buy |
| ST8000VX0022 SkyHawk · Used | 8TB | UNVERIFIED | $280 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-20 | $35.00 | Buy |
| ST4000VX016 SkyHawk · New | 4TB | CMR | $180 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-22 | $45.00 | Buy |
| ST4000VX016 SkyHawk · New | 4TB | CMR | $180 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-20 | $45.00 | Buy |
| ST10000VE0004 SkyHawk AI · New | 10TB | CMR | $485 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-20 | $48.50 | Buy |
| ST6000VX001 SkyHawk · New | 6TB | CMR | $313 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-23 | $52.17 | Buy |
| SkyHawk 1.0TB SkyHawk · Used | 1TB | UNVERIFIED | $110 | TYPICAL since 2026-08-20 | $110.00 | Buy |
| ST8000VEZ01 SkyHawk AI · New | 8TB | UNVERIFIED | $366 | ELEVATED since 2026-08-20 | $45.79 | Buy |
| ST8000VX0022 SkyHawk · New | 8TB | UNVERIFIED | $395 | ELEVATED since 2026-08-26 | $49.38 | Buy |
| ST14000VE0008 SkyHawk AI · New | 14TB | UNVERIFIED | $870 | ELEVATED since 2026-08-20 | $62.14 | Buy |
| ST2000VX017 SkyHawk · New | 2TB | UNVERIFIED | $182 | NEW - building history since 2026-09-16 | $91.00 | Buy |
Lowest in-stock cost per terabyte at each capacity across both SkyHawk tiers. Where the rate improves going up a rung, the larger drive buys more retention for less per terabyte - subject to your recorder's maximum supported capacity.
Every row above compares a drive's current price against that same drive's own tracked history, in the same condition. Not against a list price, not against a competitor, and not against a manufacturer's suggested figure. That is the only comparison that survives a market where the reference price is set by the person offering the discount.
AT/NEAR LOW means the current price is within three percent of the lowest we have recorded for that exact drive in the last thirty days. It does not mean the price is low in absolute terms and it does not mean it will not fall further. It means that on this drive's own recent record, today is at the good end.
TYPICAL means the price sits within seven percent either side of the thirty-day median. It is the most common verdict and the least interesting, which is the point: most prices most of the time are unremarkable, and a tool that flagged everything as a deal would be worthless. If you need the drive, a TYPICAL price is a perfectly reasonable one to pay.
ELEVATED means the drive is more than seven percent above its thirty-day median. That is worth pausing over but it is not automatically a reason to wait. In a supply-constrained market an elevated price sometimes reflects genuine scarcity rather than a seller testing the ceiling, and the drive may become unavailable before it becomes cheaper.
NEW means we have fewer than seven days of history and will not compute a range from it. This is deliberate and it is the most important rule on the page. A thirty-day minimum derived from one day of data is a fabricated number wearing the costume of a real one, and publishing it would undermine every honest figure next to it. Those rows show the date we started tracking and nothing more.
This page has a failure mode that the other deals pages do not, and it is worth naming before you use the table. A verdict answers one question — is this drive cheap relative to its own history — and it is entirely silent on whether the drive suits your system. On a surveillance page those two questions come apart more sharply than anywhere else on the site.
The reason is the workload rating. Seagate rates the standard SkyHawk line at 180TB per year and SkyHawk AI at 550TB per year, and the tier column above carries which one each row belongs to. A standard-tier drive sitting at AT/NEAR LOW is genuinely a good price for that drive. If your camera count puts the recorder's annual write volume above what the standard tier is rated for, it is also the wrong purchase, and the badge saying otherwise is answering a different question from the one you have.
Run the arithmetic before you run the table. Take your camera count, multiply by the typical per-camera bitrate your recorder reports, and convert: a stream at 4 Mbps is 0.5 megabytes per second, which is about 15.8 terabytes a year per camera running continuously. Eight cameras at that rate is roughly 126TB per year and sits inside the standard tier. Thirty cameras at the same rate is roughly 473TB per year and does not — that system needs the AI tier's rating regardless of what the verdicts say today.
Once you know which tier you need, use the verdicts inside that tier rather than across the whole table. The comparison worth making is a cheap AI-tier drive against an expensive AI-tier drive, not a cheap standard drive against either. Our SkyHawk hub carries the full per-model specification tables with the workload rating printed against each part number.
Surveillance drives sell heavily through marketplace sellers, and at a number of capacities the buy box is a used listing rather than a new one. Every row above carries a condition badge, and the verdict was computed against that condition's own price history rather than against a blend of the two.
This separation matters more than it sounds. A used listing and a new listing for the same part number are different products with different price series, and averaging them produces a verdict that describes neither. A used drive at its own recorded low sitting beside a new one that is elevated is a real and useful signal; the same two rows blended into one average would tell you nothing at all.
It also changes how to read a good verdict. A used drive at AT/NEAR LOW is cheap relative to other used listings of that model, which is not the same claim as being a good buy. Used surveillance drives have often come out of another surveillance system, which is the most write-heavy life a drive can have, and sellers rarely disclose power-on hours. We do not invent an hours figure and we would not repeat one a listing did not state.
Where the used market genuinely helps is at capacities the new market has priced badly, and at older part numbers that are no longer manufactured. Where it helps least is on the drive that will carry the primary recording load in a system you cannot easily revisit. If you buy used, check SMART attributes on arrival rather than trusting the listing — our drive health section covers what to read and what the values mean.
The discount percentage is the most manipulated number in storage retail. A percentage is a relationship between two figures and the seller controls one of them. Raise the reference price and the discount grows without the price you pay moving at all. This is legal, ubiquitous, and it is why a large badge tells you almost nothing about whether a drive is worth buying.
Cost per terabyte has no such weakness. It is computed from the price you actually pay and the capacity you actually receive, and neither input is under a marketer's control. A drive at $28 per terabyte is a better rate than one at $37 per terabyte regardless of what either listing claims to be discounted from, and that ordering does not change based on framing.
This is why the table shows both a verdict and a per-terabyte figure, and why they answer different questions. The verdict answers whether this drive is cheap relative to its own recent history. The per-terabyte figure answers whether it is cheap relative to every other way of buying a terabyte. A drive can sit at its own recorded low and still be poor value per terabyte, which usually means it has been consistently expensive rather than that today is a bargain.
The strongest buy is the row where both agree, in the tier your camera count requires, with a recording badge you are comfortable with. Our good price per TB page sets the wider benchmark for what a reasonable rate looks like this year across every category we track.
The most reliable saving in storage is not a discount, it is buying the right rung of the capacity ladder. Cost per terabyte does not scale linearly with capacity, so the next size up is regularly cheaper per terabyte than the size you planned to buy, sometimes while costing barely more in absolute terms.
In surveillance that check pays twice, because capacity converts directly into retention. A drive that holds thirty days of footage at your bitrate holds sixty at double the capacity, and if the larger drive is also cheaper per terabyte you have bought twice the retention for less than twice the money. That is a different proposition from a NAS, where extra capacity often sits unused until the array is rebalanced.
The check itself is quick. Take the capacity you intended, look at the rung above it in the table, and compare both the per-terabyte rate and the absolute price. If the rate improves and the extra outlay is tolerable, take the larger drive. If the rate gets worse, you are paying a scarcity premium for capacity you do not need.
One constraint to confirm first: recorders have a maximum supported drive capacity, and it is frequently lower than the largest drive on sale. That limit lives in your recorder's documentation, not in the drive's, and a drive above it may not be recognised at all. Check it before buying up a rung — it is the one place where the capacity-jump advice can cost you money rather than save it.
Surveillance purchases are rarely one drive. A recorder with four bays gets filled, an installer buys for a whole site, and a system being upgraded replaces everything at once. That changes the arithmetic of waiting in a way worth stating plainly.
Every per-drive saving multiplies. A drive that is $40 above its own thirty-day median is a $40 decision on one unit and a $160 decision on four. The verdicts above are computed per drive, so the multiplication is yours to do, but it is the reason an ELEVATED badge deserves more attention on this page than on a single-drive purchase elsewhere.
It cuts the other way on availability. A multi-drive order needs several units of the same model in stock at once, and the deeper you go into an order the more likely you are to clear out the cheapest seller and land on a dearer one. The price you see is the price of the next unit, not necessarily of the fourth. If a model at a good verdict has thin stock, buying the set promptly is usually better than optimising the last few percent and finding the listing gone.
There is also a real argument for not buying identically. Drives from the same batch have correlated failure characteristics, and a set bought together tends to age together. Mixing part numbers or purchase dates across a multi-bay recorder spreads that risk, and it costs nothing when the verdicts happen to favour different models on the same day. Our drive health section covers what correlated ageing looks like in practice.
Prices refresh every few hours, and the freshness stamp at the top of this page shows the moment of the last successful check rather than the time you loaded the page. Those are different things and the difference matters: a page that claims to be live but stamps itself with the current time is telling you nothing about the data behind it.
For a purchase you intend to make within a week, checking daily is enough. Retail drive pricing does not move on the timescale equities do, and rows that change meaningfully in a day are the exception. For a purchase you are willing to wait months for, a weekly check costs nothing and gives the history window time to become more informative — the longer we track a drive, the more meaningful its thirty-day range becomes.
The signal genuinely worth acting on quickly is not a price move, it is a stock move. In this market a drive going out of stock is more common and more consequential than a drive getting expensive, and it is not recoverable by waiting. Anything that disappears from these tables disappeared because it was not buyable at load time.
One caveat on the window: it is a window on our tracking, not on the universe. We measure Amazon US listings, which is a price-discovery venue rather than the whole market, and surveillance drives in particular move through security-trade distributors we do not price. Our where to buy coverage sets out the channels we know about and how we think about the risk of each.
By comparing it against that exact drive's own tracked history in that exact condition, over thirty days. Within three percent of the recorded low reads AT/NEAR LOW; within seven percent of the median reads TYPICAL; more than seven percent above reads ELEVATED. Nothing is compared against a list price, because the seller controls that number.
Because we have tracked them for under a week. A thirty-day minimum computed from one day of data is a fabricated figure, and printing it beside genuine ranges would devalue all of them. Those rows show the date tracking started and nothing more. They gain a real verdict once the window fills.
Only if your camera count fits the standard tier's rating. Seagate rates standard SkyHawk at 180TB per year and SkyHawk AI at 550TB. Multiply cameras by per-camera bitrate to get your annual write volume: a continuous 4 Mbps stream is about 15.8TB a year, so eight cameras is roughly 126TB and fits, while thirty is roughly 473TB and does not. A good verdict on an under-rated drive is still the wrong purchase.
Sometimes, and the verdict tells you whether the price is good relative to other used listings of that model rather than whether the drive is a good buy. Used surveillance drives have often come out of another recorder, which is the most write-heavy life a drive can have, and sellers rarely disclose power-on hours. We do not invent an hours figure. If you buy used, read SMART on arrival — our drive health section covers what to look at.
No, and they frequently disagree. The verdict is relative to the drive's own history; the per-terabyte figure is relative to every other way of buying storage. A drive can sit at its recorded low and still be poor value per terabyte, which usually means it has been consistently expensive. The strongest buy is where both agree, inside the tier your system needs.
They are read from our tracking of Amazon US listings when the page loads and refreshed every few hours. Out-of-stock drives are excluded entirely rather than shown at their last known price, so every row is something you could buy right now. The timestamp at the top is the last successful refresh, not the time you opened the page.
Specification claims on this page were checked against the pages below on 4 August 2026. Where a widely-repeated figure did not survive that check, we report what the source says now and say so in the text rather than repeating the familiar number.