Toshiba is the third of the three remaining hard drive makers. The MG series is its enterprise nearline line, in SATA and SAS; the N300 is its NAS line. Both are CMR throughout, so both are safe for a parity array without checking model by model. Toshiba usually competes on price - and its real drawback is availability rather than cost. Right now 53% of the Toshiba listings we hold are in stock, against 83% for WD Ultrastar and 60% for Seagate Exos.
Prices updated · live figures update every 4-5 hours
Share of the listings we hold for each line that are in stock at this moment. This measures our catalogue, not Amazon as a whole - but it is counted identically for all three lines, so the comparison between them is fair.
Live prices · updated every 4-5 hours · last checked 2 min ago · ranked by live cost per terabyte - check the interface column, MG ships the same capacity in SATA and SAS
| Model | Capacity | Recording | RPM | Workload TB/yr | Warranty | $/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14TB MG07ACA14TEREFURB | 14TB | CMR | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $23.50 | $329 | Buy |
| 18TB MG09ACA18TEREFURB | 18TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $35.28 | $635 | Buy |
| 18TB MG09SCA18TE | 18TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $38.89 | $700 | Buy |
| 1.8TB AL15SEB18EQREFURB | 1.8TB | CMR | 10,000 | — | — | $44.03 | $79 | Buy |
| 8TB MG08SDA800E | 8TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $46.13 | $369 | Buy |
| 2TB MG03ACA200 | 2TB | CMR | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $55.30 | $111 | Buy |
| 18TB MG09ACA18TE | 18TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $57.78 | $1040 | Buy |
| MG09 14TB | 14TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $60.71 | $850 | Buy |
Workload rating is recorded per part number from Seagate's datasheet for that exact model, not blanketed across the line — two drives of the same capacity can differ because they are different generations. A dash means the figure is not stated for that listing. Recording technology comes from the manufacturer's published CMR/SMR list; a model absent from that list is shown as UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. Rows priced above 3× this line's in-stock median are flagged and excluded from the winner callout and from every median we compute.
Live prices · updated every 4-5 hours · last checked 2 min ago · the NAS line, SATA only - listed separately from MG because they target different enclosures
| Model | Capacity | Recording | RPM | Workload TB/yr | Warranty | $/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N300 Pro 12TB | 12TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $39.92 | $479 | Buy |
| N300 8TB | 8TB | CMR | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $65.33 | $523 | Buy |
Workload rating is recorded per part number from Seagate's datasheet for that exact model, not blanketed across the line — two drives of the same capacity can differ because they are different generations. A dash means the figure is not stated for that listing. Recording technology comes from the manufacturer's published CMR/SMR list; a model absent from that list is shown as UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. Rows priced above 3× this line's in-stock median are flagged and excluded from the winner callout and from every median we compute.
Cheapest of each on the same capacity, MG and N300 together. A dash means we hold no live listing on that track today.
There are three companies left making hard drives: Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba. The first two get almost all the attention, and most buying guides are effectively a comparison between Exos and Ultrastar. Toshiba is the one people forget, and forgetting it costs money, because the MG line is a genuine enterprise nearline platform that regularly prices below both.
Toshiba's storage business is the old Fujitsu and Hitachi drive lineage, and the MG series is its datacentre product - helium-sealed at the high capacities, 7200 RPM, CMR throughout, sold in SATA and SAS variants of the same capacity in the way enterprise lines usually are. The N300 is the NAS-branded line for the same buyer who would look at IronWolf or WD Red.
This page tracks both. They are separated in the tables, because an N300 and an MG are aimed at different enclosures and it would be misleading to rank them as one pool.
The chart above is the honest summary of buying Toshiba. Across the three enterprise nearline platforms we track, Toshiba MG listings are in stock a materially smaller share of the time than Exos or Ultrastar listings, and the catalogue behind it is far smaller in absolute terms too.
This is what buying Toshiba feels like in practice. The price is often excellent - an MG07 14TB has sat near the top of our cost-per-terabyte rankings across the entire catalogue, beating enterprise drives from both larger makers. But the drive is frequently not purchasable when you go looking, and the specific capacity you want may have no listing at all for weeks.
The practical consequence is that Toshiba rewards opportunism and punishes planning. If you are filling a NAS this weekend and you need six matched drives, Toshiba is unlikely to be the answer. If you check prices regularly and can buy when something appears, it is frequently the cheapest way to add a terabyte.
We would rather tell you that than publish a ranking that puts a Toshiba drive at the top and lets you discover the availability problem at the checkout.
The MG series is the enterprise nearline line. Model numbers read MG followed by a generation number and a suffix block: MG07ACA14TE is a 14TB from the MG07 generation, MG08ADA800E an 8TB from MG08, MG09ACA18TE an 18TB from MG09. The generation number tracks capacity range and platform rather than a quality tier - a newer generation exists because the older one did not reach that capacity.
Within a generation the letters matter. ACA denotes the SATA variant and SCA the SAS one, so MG09ACA18TE and MG09SCA18TE are the same 18TB drive on two different interfaces. That distinction is the one that most often goes wrong in a purchase: a SAS drive will not work on a SATA-only backplane, and the listings do not always make the interface obvious. Our tables carry an interface column for exactly this reason - check it before you buy.
The N300 is the NAS line, aimed at desktop and small-rack enclosures rather than datacentre chassis. N300 Pro is a higher-workload variant of the same idea. Both are SATA only.
Every drive in both lines is CMR. Toshiba has not shipped shingled recording in the MG or N300 families, so neither line needs the per-model recording-technology decoder our BarraCuda and WD Red pages carry. That makes both safe for a parity array without a model-by-model check.
Check the interface first. This is the single most common Toshiba mistake, because the SATA and SAS variants of a capacity carry near-identical names and often near-identical photographs, and the SAS drive is frequently the cheaper of the two precisely because fewer buyers can use it. If your machine has a plain SATA controller or a consumer NAS, you need the ACA part, not the SCA one.
Check whether the listing is new or refurbished, and treat our two tracks as separate markets, because they are. We never score a refurbished price against a new drive's history and we never fill a gap on the new side with a refurbished number.
Be sceptical of a single listing at a capacity. When a line is thinly stocked, one seller can hold the only listing at a given capacity, and a single-seller price is not a market price. Our tables flag listings that sit far above the line's own median and exclude them from the winner callout, but the underlying thinness is worth knowing about when you are looking at a capacity with one row.
Finally, do not assume a Toshiba drive is cheap because Toshiba is often cheap. The tables here are live for that reason. On any given day the MG at a given capacity may be the best value in the catalogue or may be well above the equivalent Exos and Ultrastar, and only the current number can tell you which.
Every figure is the cheapest live listing we hold for that drive at the moment you loaded the page. Cost per terabyte is price divided by advertised capacity, which is the number that should usually decide the purchase because it makes different capacities directly comparable.
New and refurbished are tracked entirely separately, everywhere on this site. Multi-pack listings are excluded, because a four-pack priced as a single drive would show a per-terabyte figure a quarter of the true one and would top every ranking it touched.
Where a seller has put Renewed or Recertified in their own listing title, we file the drive as refurbished even when the marketplace reports the condition as new. The marketplace field is not always right and the seller's own title is the better evidence.
The timestamp above the tables is the last successful refresh of the Toshiba rows specifically, not the time you arrived on the page.
Toshiba deals scores every drive against its own price history on its own condition track · Seagate Exos and WD Ultrastar are the other two enterprise nearline platforms in the availability chart above · the CMR drive list covers the lines where recording technology does vary by model · the recertified guide covers what a refurbished grade means.
The MG series is a real enterprise nearline platform in the same class as Seagate Exos and WD Ultrastar - helium-sealed at high capacities, CMR, 7200 RPM, SATA and SAS variants, enterprise workload ratings. We do not run reliability testing ourselves, so we will not rank the three on failure rates. What we can measure is price and availability, and on those Toshiba is frequently cheaper and consistently harder to buy.
MG is the enterprise nearline line, sold in both SATA and SAS, aimed at datacentre chassis. N300 is the NAS line, SATA only, aimed at desktop and small-rack enclosures - the direct competitor to Seagate IronWolf and WD Red. N300 Pro is a higher-workload variant of the N300. Both lines are CMR throughout.
CMR, across the whole line, as is the N300. Toshiba has not shipped shingled recording in either family, which makes both safe for RAID and ZFS parity arrays without checking model by model. That is not true of every consumer line from the other two makers.
The interface. MG09ACA18TE is the SATA version of the 18TB MG09; MG09SCA18TE is the SAS version of the same drive. This trips people up constantly because the two listings look nearly identical and the SAS one is often cheaper - because fewer buyers can use it. A SAS drive will not work on a SATA-only controller or a consumer NAS.
Smaller market share and thinner retail presence mean Toshiba competes on price to win the sale, and its drives do not carry the brand premium the other two lines command. The catch is in the availability chart above: the listing that is cheap this week may not exist next week, and Toshiba stock is more intermittent than either competitor in our catalogue.
Yes. All three makers' enterprise nearline drives are 7200 RPM class CMR drives built for multi-drive enclosures, and arrays do not care about the badge. Match capacities, because a parity array sizes itself to its smallest member, and match interfaces to whatever your backplane actually is.
Each of these carries the same live pricing and, where the family mixes recording technologies or interfaces, the same per-model decoder.
CMR drive list · Recertified guide · NAS devices · External drives
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.