Ultrastar He10 (HUH7210): What It Is and What It Costs

6 part numbers tracked ยท 14 in stock now ยท prices updated

Quick answer

He10 is WD/HGST's name for the HUH721010-series 10TB helium-sealed enterprise hard drive, one generation before He12. We track 6 distinct part numbers across SAS and SATA, with 14 in stock right now (5 new, 9 recertified or used). It currently accounts for roughly 36% of the recertified 10TB listings we track. Unlike He12, we could not identify a "current WD name" for this generation at all - see the naming note below.

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Which He10 am I buying? Every HUH721010 variant

The same base part number splits across SAS and SATA interfaces and, on the SAS and SATA 4Kn variant, sector format - a distinction that decides whether a drive will drop into an existing array at all. Every row below links to its own decode page, built from WD's published Ultrastar interface-suffix documentation.

Part numberInterfaceSector formatFamily label in our catalogue
HUH721010AL4200SAS-12G-Ultrastar He10decode โ†’
HUH721010AL5200SAS-12G-Ultrastar Hedecode โ†’
HUH721010AL5204SAS-12G-Ultrastar He10decode โ†’
HUH721010ALE600SATA-6G512eUltrastar He10decode โ†’
HUH721010ALE604SATA-6G512eUltrastar He10decode โ†’
HUH721010ALN600SATA-6G4KnUltrastar He10decode โ†’

Amber sector format = 4Kn. 3 SAS variants, 3 SATA variants tracked.

SAS or SATA, and why 4Kn is the trap

Every HUH721010 variant is the same 10TB helium-sealed mechanism behind two different interfaces, and picking between them is a question about your controller, not about the drive. A SAS variant needs a SAS host bus adapter or a SAS-capable backplane - it will not run from a motherboard SATA port at all. A SATA variant is more flexible: it runs on a native SATA port and will also run on a SAS controller, which is why SATA is the safer default for a homelab build with an unknown or mixed backplane.

Sector format is the trap that a plain interface check misses. Among the SAS variants, AL4-suffixed part numbers are 4Kn (4K native) while AL5-suffixed numbers are 512e - two different on-disk sector geometries under the same base part number and the same interface. A 4Kn drive dropped into an array, RAID controller or filesystem built for 512e will typically fail to initialise or will report a capacity mismatch rather than silently working at reduced performance, so this is a compatibility question to settle before purchase, not something to discover during a rebuild. The variant table above states the format for every part number we track rather than leaving it to the listing text, which frequently omits it entirely.

New versus recertified at 10TB

He10 is a real but not overwhelming share of 10TB refurbished supply - about 36% of it right now, smaller than He12's share at 12TB. That means the site-wide 10TB figures on Recertified 10TB drives describe a broader market than He10 alone, more so than the equivalent comparison does at 12TB.

He10 shelf spread
$38.17 new ยท $23.50 recert
+38.4% recertified vs new, cheapest listing each side
Matched-model discount
+34.9%
4 models stocked in both conditions
All 10TB (site-wide)
+8.7%
see full breakdown

Read the matched-model figure over the shelf figure when the two disagree. The shelf number compares whatever happens to be cheapest on each side today, which at a capacity this old can easily mean comparing a He10 recertified pull against a completely different new drive from a different product tier - the matched figure instead compares the same model against its own price in the other condition, and is the one worth trusting when its model count is not vanishingly small.

Live He10 listings

14 He10 listings in stock, ranked by verdict then $/TB

10 at/near low ยท 2 typical ยท 2 elevated

ModelCapacityRecordingPriceVerdict$/TB
HUH721010AL5200
Refurbished
10TBCMR$235AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$23.50Buy
HUH721010ALE600
Refurbished
10TBCMR$249AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$24.90Buy
HUH721010ALE600
Refurbished
10TBCMR$260AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$26.00Buy
HUH721010AL4200
Refurbished
10TBCMR$265AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$26.53Buy
HUH721010ALE600
Refurbished
10TBCMR$280AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$27.99Buy
HUH721010ALE604
Refurbished
10TBCMR$300AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$30.00Buy
HUH721010ALE600
Refurbished
10TBCMR$319AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-09-03
$31.90Buy
HUH721010AL5200
Refurbished
10TBCMR$348AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$34.77Buy
HUH721010ALN600
New
10TBCMR$382AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$38.17Buy
HUH721010AL5200
New
10TBCMR$459AT/NEAR LOW
since 2026-08-14
$45.95Buy
HUH721010AL4200
New
10TBCMR$394TYPICAL
since 2026-08-15
$39.45Buy
HUH721010ALE600
New
10TBCMR$400TYPICAL
since 2026-08-14
$40.00Buy
HUH721010AL5204
Refurbished
10TBCMR$406ELEVATED
since 2026-08-14
$40.60Buy
HUH721010AL5200
New
10TBCMR$425ELEVATED
since 2026-08-14
$42.50Buy
Methodologyhow the verdicts are computedshow
  • AT/NEAR LOW โ€” the current price is at or close to the cheapest we have recorded for that exact drive.
  • TYPICAL โ€” close to that drive's own recent typical level.
  • ELEVATED โ€” meaningfully above its own recent typical level.
  • NEW - building history โ€” fewer than 7 days of tracking, so we decline to judge it rather than judging it on too little.

Verdicts are computed from our own daily snapshots, always against the same drive's own record and never against a manufacturer list price. The only price shown on this page is the current one, with the time we last checked it โ€” we publish the verdict as a label rather than printing past prices. Out-of-stock drives are excluded entirely, and the date beside each badge tells you how long we have been watching that drive.

Where it fits

He10 is a nearline enterprise platform rather than a NAS-branded line, so it does not carry a manufacturer NAS-compatibility marketing page the way IronWolf or Red Pro do. What it does carry is whatever the independent NAS-vendor compatibility registries this site tracks actually list it against, matched at the base part-number level rather than by capacity or by name - the same registry the compatibility hub uses everywhere else on the site.

Registry-resolved compatibility

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

Is the He10 still worth buying over a He12?

Yes, on price per terabyte specifically: the cheapest He10 we track right now is $23.50/TB against $27.50/TB for the cheapest He12, so He10 is currently the lower cost per terabyte of the two - though it is also two terabytes smaller per drive, which matters for bay-limited builds.

What's the difference between the He10 SAS and SATA variants?

Interface and, on some part numbers, sector format - not capacity or generation. The PN variant table above lists every HUH721010 suffix we track with its interface and whether it is 512e or 4Kn; a SAS drive needs a SAS host bus adapter or backplane, while a SATA drive runs on either a SATA port or a SAS controller. Pick based on what your system actually has, not on any claimed difference in the drive itself - WD's documentation for these interface suffixes does not describe one.

Is He10 the same as WD's HC510?

We could not confirm or deny this from WD's own documentation - the same access problem covered on the helium generations page applied here. What we can say is that HC510 is currently absent from WD's own footnote naming its current 550TB/yr-rated Ultrastar lineup, and its dedicated product page 404s on WD's live site - so unlike He12, which maps onto a name (HC520) WD is still actively selling, He10 does not have an obvious "current WD name" in what we could verify at all.

How much of the 10TB recertified market is He10?

About 36% of the 25 recertified 10TB listings we currently track are HUH721010-series drives - a real share, though a smaller majority than He12 holds at 12TB. The full 10TB picture, all brands and conditions, is at the recertified 10TB page linked below.

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