4TB Enterprise Hard Drive: Which Part Numbers Count and When 4 TB Still Makes Sense

4TB enterprise hard drive prices on Amazon.co.uk

This table holds the 4 TB drives our catalogue classes as enterprise, as offered on Amazon.co.uk. At the last price check it held 22 listings in stock. Lowest price per TB at the last check: £31.31/TB. Every price is in pounds sterling inc VAT, and the button on a row reads Buy on Amazon.

A recording type appears in the Recording column only when a maker document names that part number. An Amazon title that says CMR is the seller's wording, and we do not treat it as proof.

Which 4TB enterprise hard disk part numbers to look for

The word enterprise in a listing title tells you little. The model string does, because it can be checked against the maker's sheet. These are the standard strings the sheets print at this capacity, split by sector format because 4 TB is where native 512-byte parts still appear.

WD's key explains the HC310 strings. E6 is 512e SATA, A6 is 512n SATA, S2 is 512n SAS and 52 is 512e SAS. The trailing y gives the Power Disable Pin 3 status and z the data security mode, so one family covers several finished numbers.

We have not been able to read a Toshiba 4 TB document, so this page gives no Toshiba specification. If a Toshiba row shows in the table, take its details from Toshiba before you rely on them.

Seagate 4TB enterprise hard drive: Exos 7E10 against Exos 7E8

Both sheets list a 512n SATA model at 4 TB, so the two are easy to confuse in a listing. They are not the same drive on paper. The 7E10 carries twice the cache and is the lighter of the pair, whilst the 7E8 states 0.59 W less idle power.

Sector format changes the idle figure on the 7E10. The 512n SATA drive is stated at 6.04 W average idle and the 512e/4KN SATA drive, ST4000NM024B, at 5.16 W. So the native 512-byte model is the one that draws 0.88 W more. Choose it because a system needs 512n, not in the hope of saving power.

Seagate puts the 7E10's workload at 550TB per year, which it calls ten times a desktop hard drive. That comparison is Seagate's own, not a test of ours. The ratings belong to the family, so they say nothing about how a particular used unit has been run.

Western Digital 4TB enterprise hard drive: HC310 and WD Gold

WD calls the Ultrastar DC HC310 a low-capacity HDD, with 6 TB and 4 TB offerings, and builds it on a four-disk air platform. Its 4 TB models carry a 512n option, which WD says is there to support legacy systems with native 512-byte block sizes. That sentence is the clearest reason on any sheet we read to choose this capacity on purpose.

The HC310 idle line covers the 6 TB and 4 TB family together: 5.9 W for SATA and 7.0 W for SAS. It is a shared figure, not one measured for 4 TB alone.

WD Gold has two 4 TB numbers that are easy to mix up. WD4005FRYZ idles at 6.5 W and WD4004FRYZ at 5.8 W, a 0.7 W gap between drives of the same size, and the sheet marks both as Air. It is titled as an Enterprise Class SATA HDD document, so no SAS Gold number comes from it. For the wider picture, compare these with SATA enterprise hard drives at other capacities.

Is a 4TB hard drive worth it?

In enterprise form, yes where the size or the format is the requirement, and seldom where capacity per bay or per watt is the goal. Seagate's own 7E10 row shows why. In its 512e/4KN SATA table, the 4 TB drive idles at 5.16 W, the 8 TB at 7.06 W and the 10 TB at 7.8 W.

Divide by capacity and that is 1.29 W per TB at 4 TB, about 0.88 W at 8 TB and 0.78 W at 10 TB. Two 4 TB drives idle at 10.32 W for the same space one 8 TB drive provides at 7.06 W, a gap of 3.26 W. Over 8,760 hours that is about 28.6 kWh a year at idle. This is our arithmetic on Seagate's figures, not a measurement, and it ignores load.

Set that against what a second drive buys you: two spindles rather than one, at the cost of a second bay. Mirroring the pair adds redundancy but gives up half the space, so a mirror no longer matches the 8 TB drive's capacity. Weigh it case by case:

• A legacy system that needs native 512-byte sectors: 4 TB is a capacity where the HC310 sheet offers 512n, and the 7E10 and 7E8 sheets list 512n models.
• A replacement for a 4 TB member of an existing array: check the interface and sector format of the drive coming out, then match the model string.
• A small server where 4 TB is plenty: compare the total price in the table, because a lower outlay may matter more to you than the figure per TB.
• Bulk storage: compare the per TB column here with the 8 TB enterprise table and the 10 TB enterprise table before you commit.

4TB SATA enterprise hard drive or SAS: settle the interface first

SAS adds idle power on every 512n line at this size: 0.55 W on the 7E10 (6.59 W against 6.04 W), 1.07 W on the 7E8 (6.52 W against 5.45 W) and 1.1 W on the HC310's shared family figure. That is no reason to choose by watts, because your hardware decides. Confirm which interface your controller or backplane accepts. This table holds SAS rows only, and any row whose interface we could not read stays in the first table instead.

More on the interface itself sits on our SAS hard drives page, across capacities rather than at 4 TB alone.

New 4TB enterprise drives and Seagate's recertified numbers

The new-condition table holds 18 listings from the same check.

Seagate's factory-recertified sheet uses its own SATA numbers at this size: ST4000NM000C, ST4000NM001C and ST4000NM002C. It states a 6-month limited warranty and 7.2 W Idle A average, so at 4 TB a recertified drive is stated well above the 5.16 W of the new 512e 7E10, as well as carrying far shorter maker cover than that drive's 5 years. A row marked used on Amazon.co.uk does not by itself show that a unit is Seagate factory recertified, so look for one of those numbers. If you buy as a consumer from a trader, your statutory rights are separate from either warranty. Our refurbished enterprise hard drives page takes this further.