WD Ultrastar HC690 32TB and Seagate Exos 32TB can land in the same procurement spreadsheet, but they should not be treated as equivalent 32TB enterprise drives. The architectural difference is the decision.
HC690 is WD UltraSMR/SMR for qualified SMR-aware stacks. The tracked Exos 32TB row is a Seagate enterprise CMR drive. That difference affects compatibility, workload fit and operational risk before price enters the conversation.
Choose Seagate Exos 32TB for conventional enterprise storage that expects CMR behavior. Choose WD HC690 32TB only when the storage stack is already qualified for UltraSMR/host-managed SMR and density per rack is the primary goal. If the stack is not SMR-aware, Exos wins even if HC690 looks cheaper per raw TB.
Use this as the procurement-level screen before looking at live price rows.
| Decision point | Ultrastar HC690 32TB | Exos 32TB |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | UltraSMR / host-managed SMR | CMR in tracked Exos 32TB row |
| Capacity | 32TB | 32TB |
| Interface | SATA and SAS variants | SATA 6Gb/s in tracked row |
| Cache | 512MB | 512MB in tracked row |
| Best workload | SMR-aware object and retention tiers | Conventional enterprise storage |
| Avoid for | Unqualified RAID/NAS/random-write pools | Workloads requiring WD UltraSMR fleet standardization |
| Procurement risk | Host-stack compatibility | Exact Exos SKU/interface qualification |
| Decision metric | Architecture first, price second | Compatibility first, price second |
This shows the capacity delta only. The financial answer comes from the live $/TB rows on the page.
| Drive count | Ultrastar HC690 32TB raw | Exos 32TB raw | Raw delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 bays | 128TB | 128TB | 0TB |
| 6 bays | 192TB | 192TB | 0TB |
| 8 bays | 256TB | 256TB | 0TB |
| 12 bays | 384TB | 384TB | 0TB |
No exact in-stock live row is currently matched for WSH723220ALN6L4 / ST32000NM004K. Relevant live alternatives are shown for pricing context; verify qualification before treating any row as a substitute.
Live prices · updated about once a day · last checked 32 min ago · one side may be unavailable; alternatives are not exact OEM replacements
| Model | Capacity | Recording | RPM | Workload TB/yr | Warranty | $/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22TB ST22000NM001EREFURB This offer: sold by Info-Tech · Amazon says New / New · title says Renewed | 22TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $28.14 | $619 | Buy on Amazon |
| 16TB ST16000NM001GREFURB This offer: sold by goHardDrive · Amazon says New / New · title says Renewed, Recertified | 16TB | CMR | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $29.37 | $470 | Buy on Amazon |
| 22TB ST22000NM001EREFURB This offer: sold by goHardDrive · Amazon says New / New · title says Recertified | 22TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $32.73 | $720 | Buy on Amazon |
| 24TB ST24000NM002HREFURB This offer: sold by goHardDrive · Amazon says New / New · title says Renewed | 24TB | CMR | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $33.29 | $799 | Buy on Amazon |
| 16TB ST16000NM002GREFURB This offer: sold by Redefine IT · Amazon says New / New · title says Renewed | 16TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $34.28 | $549 | Buy on Amazon |
| 20TB ST20000NM003DREFURB This offer: sold by ServerPartDeals · Amazon says New / New · title says Renewed | 20TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | — | 5 yr | $41.45 | $829 | Buy on Amazon |
| 18TB ST18000NM003D This offer: sold by ITCP Technologies · Amazon says New / Unknown | 18TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $42.49 | $765 | Buy on Amazon |
| 14TB ST14000NM0018 This offer: sold by Wholesale Haven · Amazon says New / Unknown | 14TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $42.86 | $600 | Buy on Amazon |
| 12TB ST12000NM002G This offer: sold by ONLINE USA OUTLET · Amazon says New / Unknown | 12TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $52.08 | $625 | Buy on Amazon |
| 24TB ST24000NM000H This offer: sold by ITCP Technologies · Amazon says New / Unknown | 24TB | UNVERIFIED | 7,200 | 550 | 5 yr | $52.70 | $1265 | Buy on Amazon |
Workload rating is recorded per part number from the manufacturer's published data for that exact model where available, 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.
This table is computed from live DatacenterDisk rows when an exact in-stock match exists. It is intentionally blank for unavailable models rather than filled with stale prices.
| Live model | Drive price | $/TB | 1 drive | 4 drives | 8 drives | 12 drives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No exact in-stock row is available right now. Use the availability table for nearby live alternatives, then re-check the exact model before ordering. | ||||||
A 32TB label hides the most important distinction. HC690 obtains its density through WD UltraSMR. Exos 32TB in the tracked DatacenterDisk row is a conventional-recording enterprise Seagate drive. A normal storage stack can treat the latter as block storage in a way it should not assume for HC690.
That does not make HC690 inferior. It makes it specialized. In the right architecture, the denser SMR design can lower system-level cost. In the wrong one, it is a compatibility problem.
Raw capacity is tied at 32TB per drive, but system economics can diverge. HC690 fleets may be built around SMR-aware write shaping and high density. Exos fleets may prioritize conventional behavior and broader plug-in compatibility.
Compare cost per protected TB, watts per protected TB and qualification cost. A drive-level idle watt figure is useful, but shelves, controllers, fans and rebuild time decide the final economics.
Choose Exos for conventional enterprise servers, backup targets, ZFS pools, many Ceph deployments and environments where the storage stack has not been designed for zoned SMR behavior.
Choose HC690 for a data-center platform that already supports host-managed SMR and can turn density into fewer shelves or lower rack cost. The environment has to be known before the price comparison is meaningful.
No. HC690 is WD UltraSMR/SMR; the tracked Exos 32TB row is CMR. They need different compatibility checks.
The CMR Exos path is the safer default unless the RAID/storage platform explicitly supports HC690's SMR behavior.
Yes, but mainly in qualified SMR-aware fleets where density reduces shelves, power, rack units or operations cost.
No. Price per TB is the first screen, not the whole decision - for the Ultrastar HC690 vs Seagate Exos 32TB specifically: match recording method, interface, bay count, firmware support, warranty position and rebuild risk before accepting the cheapest row.
Specification claims on this page were checked against the pages below on 1 September 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.