16 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: SATA and SAS Options by Maker

16 TB enterprise HDD prices on Amazon.co.uk

Right now the table holds 7 listings for enterprise-class drives in stock. Lowest £/TB among tracked offers at the last check: £23.04/TB. All prices are pounds sterling inc VAT.

SATA and SAS rows share this table, so go to the Interface column before the price. Buyers with a SAS backplane have an interface-led page at 16 TB SAS drives, and anyone already set on Seagate can go straight to Seagate Exos 16 TB.

16 TB enterprise SATA HDD or SAS: which lines offer both

Interface is where the lines split at this capacity. Three Exos generations, WD's HC550 and Toshiba's MG08 and MG09 list 16 TB in both SATA and SAS. WD Gold sits on a SATA data sheet, and Toshiba's MG10 SATA Series overview lists SATA models only.

Digits alone mislead on the Seagate side. ST16000NM002G is a SAS X16, whereas ST16000NM002H is a SATA X24. Same digits, opposite interface. Your own hardware documents say which interface your system takes, so settle that before you match a number.

Toshiba 16 TB enterprise internal hard drives: the MG series

• MG08: a nine-disk helium CMR design. The MG08 sheet lists ACP and SCP models at 16 TB only, MG08ACP16TA, MG08ACP16TE, MG08SCP16TA and MG08SCP16TE, and mentions a SED option without mapping it to those models.
• MG09: nine disks and helium again, in both interfaces. MG09ACA16TE is the 512e SATA model, MG09ACA16TA the 4Kn one, and the MG09SCA16TE and MG09SCA16TA are their SAS counterparts.
• MG10: a ten-disk helium design, one more disk than the MG08 and MG09, in a 20, 18 and 16 TB range.

So a search for the MG09ACA16TE lands on one specific variant: SATA, 16 TB, 512e. If your system expects 4Kn sectors, MG09ACA16TA is the listed alternative. On the MG09 and MG10 tables, a final TE means 512e and TA means 4Kn. Newer and larger models belong to the Toshiba MG series page.

WD 16 TB enterprise HDDs: Ultrastar HC550 or WD Gold

On paper WD's two lines barely differ here. The HC550 SATA model and the Gold WD161KRYZ both print 5.6 W idle, 0.35 W/TB, 262 MB/s, up to 550 TB a year and a 0.35% AFR. The difference is the options. The HC550 comes in SATA and SAS, with self-encrypting versions of each and SED-FIPS on SAS only. The Gold sheet lists SATA alone, and we have not found an encryption option on it.

One detail ties the HC550's 16 TB to the size below it, not the size above. The 14 TB and 16 TB models are both stated at an areal density of 918 Gbits per square inch and a 262 MB/s rate, while 18 TB reaches 1022 and 269 MB/s. The family as a whole is on WD Ultrastar, and the single-model view on Ultrastar DC HC550.

16 TB across makers: idle watts and top speed

Speed and idle power rise together on Seagate's three sheets: X16, X18 and X24 go from 261 MB/s to 270 MB/s to 285 MB/s, and from about 5.0 W to 5.1 W to 6.3 W in SATA. Newer is quicker on paper, and it is not thriftier at idle. WD's HC550 sits between the X16 and X18 on speed and above both on watts. Toshiba's MG09 and MG10 overviews print 268 MiB/s, which is the same family's step up from the MG08.

The widest idle gap in this table is the 2.3 W between the X24's 6.3 W and the MG08's 4.00 W, both SATA. As a sense of scale only, 2.3 W over the 8,760 power-on hours a year on the X24 sheet is 20,148 Wh, about 20.1 kWh per drive. Multiply by your tariff and your drive count. We have not found a document that puts Toshiba's active idle and Seagate's Idle A on one test, so this is a sum from two sheets, not a measured saving.

Refurbished 16 TB enterprise HDDs: what we can and cannot source

The table here holds new-condition rows only. Lowest £/TB among them at the last check: £23.04/TB.

Across the three makers on this page, the only refurbishment document behind it is Seagate's factory-recertified sheet. That sheet lists ST16000NM002C, ST16000NM003C and ST16000NM004C at 16 TB, with a 6-month limited warranty. We have not found a WD or Toshiba document on refurbished 16 TB units among the sources for this page, which is a gap in our sourcing and tells you nothing about those makers.

Amazon's condition label alone does not establish that a unit came through Seagate's factory programme, so look at the listing wording and the seller. The choice between a new Exos and a recertified Seagate number has its own page, Seagate Exos 16 TB, and stock across capacities is on refurbished enterprise hard drives.