Cheap NAS Drives UK: Lowest Price per TB, and What Cheap Costs You

Cheap NAS drives UK: the ranking by price per TB

This is the cheap NAS drive ranking: new NAS hard drives on Amazon.co.uk, sorted by price per terabyte, pounds sterling inc VAT. Cheapest per TB right now: Seagate 20TB IronWolf Pro Internal NAS Hard Drive, at £35.70/TB. The table shows 12 listings, chosen from 31 listings in stock.

A drive gets into this table only if a maker document names its part number and states CMR. That rule is deliberate: a drive whose recording technology cannot be documented is left out rather than given the benefit of the doubt. The recording column prints the technology for each row.

Two things follow from that rule. First, the table shows only drives whose recording technology a maker document confirms for that part number, so a NAS drive missing from it is not thereby SMR, and the cheapest NAS terabyte on Amazon.co.uk may sit outside it. Second, ranking by price per terabyte across mixed capacities tends to favour larger drives, so read the capacity column: the lowest £/TB is not the lowest outlay.

Affordable NAS drives: what the budget tiers are rated for

NAS drives come in two clear tiers on their makers' own sheets. IronWolf, Red Plus and N300 are each rated at 180TB per year with a 3-year limited warranty. IronWolf Pro and Red Pro are rated at 550TB per year, about three times as much, with a 5-year limited warranty. Each row gives the figures its maker prints for the capacities named.

IronWolf's smaller drives keep the same terms. Seagate's sheet lists ST6000VN006, ST4000VN006 and ST2000VN003 at 6TB, 4TB and 2TB as CMR, rated at 180TB per year for 1 to 8 bays with a 3-year limited warranty, exactly as it rates the 8TB to 16TB models. Nothing in the ratings marks the small drives down against the larger ones.

The budget tier mostly has a bay limit of 8. Seagate specifies IronWolf for 1 to 8 bays, and WD positions Red Plus for RAID-optimised NAS systems with up to 8 bays. Toshiba's N300 is the exception at one capacity. Its June 2025 sheet supports up to 8 drive bays, and its April 2026 revision still reads up to 8 on its 20TB page, but lists the 22TB model, bulk number MN11ACA22TS, for up to 12 bays at the same 180TB per year and 3-year warranty. For a two-, four- or eight-bay home NAS none of that is a restriction; for a larger box, check the bay figure on the sheet for the exact model and capacity.

Synology's Plus Series drives sit with the budget tier on warranty: their data sheet gives a 3-year warranty. Their workload figures are set out on the Synology HAT3300 page rather than here.

Budget NAS drives to avoid: plain WD Red with EFAX

The one cheap NAS drive this page warns against by name is the plain WD Red, not to be confused with Red Plus. WD's own product brief lists SMR for four plain WD Red models: WD60EFAX, WD40EFAX, WD30EFAX and WD20EFAX. Red Plus, by contrast, lists CMR at every model on its September 2025 sheet. The names differ by one word and a listing title can shorten either to WD Red, so the model number is the test.

None of those four EFAX models can enter the ranking above, because the ranking admits only CMR-documented part numbers. Elsewhere on Amazon.co.uk, a 2TB to 6TB WD Red with EFAX in its model number is an SMR drive by WD's own account, however low its price per terabyte looks. The WD Red Plus page lists every Red Plus model number for comparison.

Seagate states that all IronWolf drives use CMR, which is a family-wide statement on its sheet. Even so, an IronWolf row appears in the ranking only where a document ties that listing's part number to CMR, so not every IronWolf on sale will show here.

Used and refurbished budget NAS drives

Used offers are kept in their own table so they never undercut a new drive in the main ranking unnoticed. The same CMR rule applies. It holds 2 listings right now. The condition each seller states is printed on the row.

The warranty terms quoted on this page are manufacturers' warranties from their data sheets. They describe the product as sold new, and they say nothing about what a used listing includes. Before you click Buy on Amazon on a used drive, read the listing for the seller's own terms and returns policy.

Cheap NAS drives vs a 16TB enterprise hard drive

At 16TB a general enterprise drive is worth pricing against a NAS drive. The table above lists new 16TB SATA drives from Exos, Ultrastar and Toshiba MG. It holds 3 listings right now. Lowest price per TB: £23.04/TB, against £35.70/TB for the NAS ranking, which spans every capacity.

Seagate's Exos X16 sheet, covering 10TB to 16TB, states a 5-year limited warranty and a 2.5 million hour MTBF, and its Exos X24 sheet states the same pair. That warranty term matches IronWolf Pro and Red Pro, and runs two years longer than the budget NAS tier's 3 years. If the cheapest 16TB enterprise drive costs little more per terabyte than a budget NAS drive, the longer warranty is worth weighing; if it costs much more, a budget drive in a small NAS is a reasonable choice within its maker's bay limit.

How to buy a budget NAS drive

• Check the model number, not the series name, and avoid WD Red models ending EFAX.
• Match the drive to the box: IronWolf and Red Plus are specified for up to 8 bays, and Toshiba's April 2026 N300 sheet gives up to 8 at 20TB and up to 12 for the 22TB MN11ACA22TS.
• Compare price per TB at the capacity you need, not across the whole ranking.
• Read the condition on the row, and the seller's terms on a used offer.

Buying fewer, larger drives often lowers the price per terabyte but raises what you lose to parity in a small array. The RAID calculator below shows the usable space each layout leaves, so you can weigh four cheaper small drives against two larger ones before you buy.