In our series of Hard Disk Drive guides, here’s the latest update to our list of recommended HDDs. All numbers in the text are updated to reflect pricing at the time of writing.

Best Consumer Hard Drives: November 2022

Data storage requirements have kept increasing over the last several years. While SSDs have taken over the role of the primary drive in most computing systems, hard drives continue to be the storage media of choice in areas dealing with large amount of relatively cold data. Hard drives are also suitable for workloads that are largely sequential and not performance sensitive. The $/GB metric for SSDs (particularly with QLC in the picture) is showing a downward trend, but it is still not low enough to match HDDs in that market segment.

In terms of recent product introductions, the retail availability of Western Digital's OptiNAND-equipped 22TB drives has improved. Pricing for Toshiba's 18TB drives using FC-MAMR, as well as Seagate's Exos 20TB and IronWolf Pro 20TB have shown a downward trend. With the HDD supply chain having pretty much recovered, and the short-lived Chia craze a thing of the past, prices have largely stabilized. Many high-capacity models such as the Seagate IronWolf Pro line are currently running 15-20% lower than launch MSRPs, and the Exos lineup continues to offer great capacity for money.

Synology has introduced 8, 12, and 16TB enterprise hard drives (rebranded Toshiba Enterprise HDDs with custom firmware), but they are meant specifically for Synology NAS units (no warranties if used in other systems) and are not part of this buyer's guide. Toshiba's MG09 18TB HDDs based on FC-MAMR are quite new in the market, and will be added in a future update to this buyer's guide


2022 - New 22TB HDDs from Western Digital

From a gaming perspective, install sizes of hundreds of GBs are not uncommon for modern games. Long-term backup storage and high-capacity NAS units for consumer use are also ideal use-cases for hard drives. The challenge in picking any hard drive, of course, is balancing workload needs with total drive costs. Most consumers in a non-business settings also require low-power and low-noise, yet, high capacity drives, which we're including as an explicit category as well.

In the current market, the WD Gold and WD Red Pro are the only available 22TB options, when the surveillance-focused WD Purple Pro is not considered. However, for consumers needing absolute lowest cost at other capacities, the Seagate Exos series fits the bill, with unbelievably low prices compared to other 'consumer' HDDs at similar capacity points. At other capacity points, the most cost-effective drives vary even when similar workload ratings are considered. It must be noted that the Exos series drives are relatively noisy and consume much more power compared to other drives tuned for specific use cases - such as the Barracuda Pro and Toshiba X300 for desktop usage, or the WD Red SMR drives for read-heavy / sparing writes scenarios.

2022 Q4 HDD Recommendations
Drive Segment Recommendations
High-Capacity Desktop 18TB Seagate Exos Enterprise $300
($16.67 / TB)
Mid-Capacity Desktop 14TB WD Red Pro $269
($19.21 / TB)
High-Capacity NAS 20TB Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS $430
($21.5 / TB)
20TB WD Red Pro $420
($21 / TB)
Cost-Effective High-Capacity NAS 18TB Seagate Exos Enterprise $300
($16.67 / TB)
Mid-Capacity NAS 14TB WD Red Pro $269
($19.21 / TB)
Power-Efficient, High-Capacity 14TB WD Red Plus $270
($19.29 / TB)

There are three active vendors in the consumer hard drive space - Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. Their retail offerings currently top out at 20TB, 18TB, and 22TB respectively.

Consumers looking to purchase hard-drives need to have a rough idea of the use-cases they are going to subject the drives to. Based on that, a specific set of metrics needs to be considered. We first take a look at the different metrics that matter, and how various hard drives stack up against each other. Since many hard drive families from different vendors can satisfy the requirements, it may all come down to the pricing. We will present a pricing matrix for various hard drive families against the available capacities.

For our guide, we're narrowing down the vast field of hard drives to the following models/families. In particular, we are excluding surveillance-focused drives such as the WD Purple or Seagate SkyHawk, since these drives are based on the same technology, but often carry a price premium. Meanwhile, we're also making sure to include some of the enterprise / datacenter SATA drives that are available for purchase from e-tailers, as these sometimes offer some great deals in terms of capacity-per-dollar. We have stopped considering the SMR-based WD Red in the guide - with capacities topping out at 6TB and being ill-suited for most NAS use-cases, it is a drive family that is best avoided for general usage.

  1. Seagate BarraCuda Pro
  2. Seagate IronWolf NAS
  3. Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS
  4. Seagate Exos Enterprise
  5. Toshiba N300
  6. Toshiba N300 Pro
  7. Toshiba X300
  8. Toshiba X300 Pro
  9. Western Digital Gold
  10. Western Digital Red Plus
  11. Western Digital Red Pro

A few notes are in order - the WD Ultrastar DC lineup which used to be in our earlier guides is not widely available in the North American retail market. We have replaced it with the WD Gold series. Toshiba's MG08 series includes a 9-platter 16TB CMR model. However, it is again enterprise-focused, and the retail market has to make do with the N300 and X300 drives for NAS and desktop systems. That said, the specifications are very similar, as we noted in the launch article.

Metrics that Matter

One of the easiest ways to narrow down the search for a suitable hard drive is to look at the target market of each family. The table below lists the suggested target market for each hard drive family we are considering today.

Hard Drive Families - Target Markets
Drive Family Target Markets
Seagate BarraCuda Pro Desktops and All-in-Ones
Home Servers
Creative Professionals Workstations
Entry-Level Direct-Attached-Storage (DAS) Units
Seagate IronWolf NAS NAS Units up to 8 bays
(Home, SOHO, and Small Business)
Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS NAS Units up to 24 bays
(Creative Pros, SOHO, and Small to Medium Enterprises)
Seagate Exos Enterprise Datacenter and Bulk Cloud Storage
Toshiba N300 NAS Units up to 8 bays
Toshiba N300 Pro NAS Units up to 24 bays
(Creative Pros, SOHO, and Small to Medium Enterprises)
Toshiba X300 Professional Desktops, Home Media or Gaming PCs
Toshiba X300 Pro Professional Workstations, and Heavy-Duty Desktops
WD Gold Datacenter and Bulk Cloud Storage
WD Red NAS Units up to 8 bays, Read-Intensive and Archival Workloads
WD Red Plus NAS Units up to 8 bays
WD Red Pro NAS Units up to 24 bays

After filtering out models that don't apply to your use-case (as an example, for usage in a 4-bay NAS enclosure, one could rule out the Toshiba X300 straight away), we can then take a look at how the specifications of various drive families compare.

Hard Drive Families - Metrics of Interest
Drive Family Rated Workload (TB/yr) Rated Load / Unload Cycles Unrecoverable Read Errors MTBF (Hours) Warranty (Years)
Seagate BarraCuda Pro 300 300K 1 in 10E15 1.0M 5
Seagate IronWolf NAS 180 600K 1 in 10E15 1.0M 3
Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 300 600K 1 in 10E15 1.2M 5
Seagate Exos Enterprise 550 600K 1 in 10E15 2.5M 5
Toshiba N300 180 300K 1 in 10E14 1.0M 3
Toshiba N300 Pro 300 600K 1 in 10E14 1.2M 5
Toshiba X300 N/A (72?) 300K 1 in 10E14 0.6M 2
Toshiba X300 Pro 300 300K 1 in 10E14 1.0M 5
WD Gold 550 600K 1 in 10E15 2.5M 5
WD Red 180 600K 1 in 10E14 1.0M 3
WD Red Plus 180 600K 1 in 10E14 1.0M 3
WD Red Pro 300 600K 1 in 10E13 1.0M 5

Based on these metrics, it is clear that the enterprise drives (Seagate Exos Enterprise and WD Gold) are rated to be more reliable in the long run over a big sample set. However, most consumer use-cases do not need a 550 TB/yr workload rating. 180 - 300 TB/yr workload rating is plenty reasonable for most users when the drives are going to be used as part of RAID arrays.

The BarraCuda Pro strikes a nice balance across many metrics, but it is rated only for 300K load / unload cycles. It also doesn't have the RV sensors present in the rest of the drives (other than the Toshiba X300 / X300 Pro).

In considering the non-enterprise drives, we note that the 'Unrecoverable Read Errors' metric is 10x worse for the WD and Toshiba drives compared to the Seagate ones. The MTTF metric for the IronWolf Pro is slightly better than the other drives (at 1.2M vs. 1M hours).

One of the aspects not mentioned in the above table is that the WD Red SMR drive is in the 5400 RPM class, while the other drives (including the Red Plus) are all 7200 RPM. Despite similar spindle speeds, the Red Plus firmware is optimized for a low noise profile across most capacity points. It might not win out on benchmarks, but possesses qualities that are important for some consumer use-cases. Another aspect to be kept in mind is that the WD Red line is now exclusively SMR-based, with the CMR drives moving to the WD Red Plus line. Unless the consumer is technically savvy enough to understand the pitfalls of SMR and its applicability to the desired use-case, the SMR-based WD Red line is best avoided. Hence, we do not include the WD Red lineup in our recommendatios.

Pricing Matrix and Concluding Remarks

The matrix below shows the current pricing for each available capacity point in all the considered hard drive families.

HDD Pricing Matrix (as of November 4, 2022)
Cheapest 'Available' Drives for NAS in Bold, AT-recommended Drives In Green
Drive Family 22TB 20TB 18TB 16TB 14TB 12TB 10TB 8TB
Seagate BarraCuda Pro - - - - $266
(Newegg)
$240
(Newegg)
$209
(Newegg)
$162
(Newegg)
Seagate IronWolf NAS - - - $330
(Newegg)
$247
(Amazon)
$230
(Newegg)
$200
(Newegg)
$160
Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS - $430
(Newegg)

$430
(Amazon)
$300
(Newegg)

$300
(Amazon)
$280 $270 $263
(Amazon)

$240
(Newegg)
$270
(Newegg)
$218
(Newegg)
Seagate Exos Enterprise - $387
(Newegg - Platinum Micro)
$300
(Newegg)
$290 $236 $210 $250 $149
(Newegg - Platinum Micro)
Toshiba N300 - - - $315 $260 $245 $209 $173
Toshiba N300 Pro - - $403 $460 $260 $324 $291 $234
Toshiba X300 - - - $300
(Newegg)
$311 $266 $214 $171
(Newegg)
Toshiba X300 Pro - - $475 $443 $383 $280 $264 $215
WD Gold $600
(Amazon)

$600
(WD)
$530
(Amazon)
$400
(Newegg)

$400
(Amazon)
$372
(Amazon)
$353
(Amazon)
$315
(Newegg)
$240 $210
(Amazon)

$210
(Newegg)
WD Red Plus - - - - $270 $235
(Newegg)
$200 $172
(Newegg)
WD Red Pro $600
(Amazon)

$600
(WD)
$420 $350 $300 $269 $269 $249 $214

The desktop storage market is a straight shoot-out between the Seagate BarraCuda Pro and the Toshiba X300 Pro. Seagate opted to stop releasing BarraCuda Pro drives above the 14TB capacity point, but Toshiba has a 16TB X300 and 18TB X300 Pro available for purchase. The Toshiba X300 is consistently priced a bit higher than the Seagate BarraCuda Pro. The higher capacity versions of the Toshiba X300 use 9 platters, and consume more power compared to the corresponding BarraCuda Pro. The Seagate pricing also includes data recovery service during the warranty period. For very similar pricing, we get a much higher workload rating, better reliability, and three extra years of warranty. That said, the Seagate Exos Enterprise at the 18TB capacity point presents the lowest $/TB metric, and wins our recommendation for this market segment despite the high power usage and noise factor. If a silent drive with relatively low power consumption is needed, the low price of the Seagate Barracuda Pro series could be an attractive alternative at lower capacity points, while the X300 Pro can fit the bill at higher ones.

Prior to commenting on the other possible use-cases, one thing is clear from the above pricing matrix - if you absolutely require 22TB per disk, the WD Gold and WD Red Pro are your only choices for purchase in the retail market currently.

On the SOHO / SMB NAS front, the Seagate Exos series and WD Gold, despite their enterprise background, continue to make a good case across multiple capacity points. The only places where the WD Red series (Pro and Plus) could edge out as a better choice are scenarios where the power consumption and noise need to be kept low. After poring over the datasheets, we have come to realize that the idle power consumption delta for the NAS-focused drives against the enterprise drives (Exos and Gold) is quite significant - sub-3W compared to 5W+. The acoustics across multiple capacity points are also much better. We have updated our recommendations accordingly.

The IronWolf NAS models deliver slightly better performance compared to the WD Red / WD Red Plus, but, have correspondingly higher power consumption numbers. On the SMB / SME NAS front, the WD Red Pro has started reaching better price points compared to previous quarters, managing to undercut the IronWolf Pro across almost all capacities. However, a plus point for the IronWolf Pro is the inclusion of the Data Rescue Service for a 3-year period in addition to the usual warranty.

It must also be kept in mind that the Segate Exos Enterprise and WD Gold are enterprise drives meant to be used in server rooms where noise and power consumption (to a large extent) are not as important as performance. As per the Exos 16TB and 18TB Exos Enterprise product manuals, the acoustics specifications are around 28-30 dB at idle, and 32-34 dB for performance seeks. Power consumption ranges from 1.31W at standby to 9.45W for high queue-depth random writes, with idling average being around 5.26W. The numbers for WD Gold are very similar. On the other hand, a drive like WD Red Pro has idle acoustics around 20 dB for the high-capacity models, though performance seeks are around 36 dB. Unless one is buying for a datacenter storage array, it is fair to expect that the drives are going to be idle for more time than doing performance seeks in SMB or SOHO NAS units. While WD doesn't break down power consumption by access trace type, the specifications indicate power numbers between 0.6W and 6.2W - considerably lower than the Exos / Gold. Price can be a key factor (which is the reason for shifting a number of our recommendations to the Exos series), but data hoarders with multi-bay NAS units or those in a SOHO setting may prefer thte NAS to be not as noisy or consume more power than needed.

Based on the above analysis, the recommendations for the NAS drives are clear - for the absolute highest capacity drive currently in the market (if you have to compulsorily get one) - WD Gold. The WD Red Pro and Seagate IronWolf Pro are excellent alternatives when performance is not as important as overall power consumption and low noise profile. This is assuming that the user has adopted the 3-2-1 backup rule and doesn't foresee the need for a data recovery service (DRS). The IronWolf Pro NAS and the BarraCuda Pro both bundle the DRS. This needs to be taken into account while considering the pricing difference against other drives in the same capacity class.

 
 

Finally, a note on shucking – Drive prices have come down to such an extent that taking out the HDD from an external DAS, and losing the warranty in the process, is no longer worthwhile. Compelling prices often hide reliability issues and lowered workload ratings (HDDs are essentially binned, and allocated to different market segments based on their expected reliaability). In light of this, users should treat money spent on shucked drives as a sunk cost, and ensure that such drives are used only in non-critical scenarios.

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  • meacupla - Saturday, November 5, 2022 - link

    My 500GB SSD has 47300GB writes, and it's still 95% good, according to crytaldiskinfo.
    Assuming I write 100GB/day to it, at this rate, it'll take another what... 10 years? before it even hits 60%
  • ballsystemlord - Saturday, November 5, 2022 - link

    That would mean that it has a lifetime of 1000TBW. Using the same projections, my SSD has a lifetime of 250TBW.
  • Leeea - Sunday, November 6, 2022 - link

    FileHistory backup on a HDD is pretty nice.

    No replacement for real backups, but so convenient for its versioning.
  • PaulHoule - Friday, November 4, 2022 - link

    Hard drive manufacturers could use some tough love. Things are reversed from how they used to be.

    The Enterprise Exos is a Chevy, it's a product that is economical because it is produced in large numbers. Those other drives are Cadillacs, but not in a good way. (More in the "blow your head gaskets at 17,000 miles" way) Hardly any consumers demand large hard drives, and those who feel uncomfortable putting an enterprise parts in their CD are paying handsomely for the privilege.

    Hard drive manufacturers are making it worse by offering way too many SKUs. Best Buy might stock large hard drives if the manufacturers could settle on one SKU, but with so many twisty little drives that all look alike, retailers just say "no thanks, let's let Amazon have these sales."

    If we were talking audiophiles than marketing like "My life wouldn't be meaningful if I didn't have NAS drives for betweeen 15 and 18 drive bays in my 17 drive bay NAS" but PC enthusiasts aren't like that, in fact they're just going to assume that special drives for video surveillance are a scam, even if they're not.

    Don't be afraid of the Exos. I have two of them spinning in the next room, they are not especially loud compared to the case and power supply fans in my machine. You will by no means save enough energy with a higher-profit drive to pay the exorbitant price. There is no way you are saving the Earth with the expensive drive either because the CEO is just going to buy another corporate jet with the profits.
  • cbm80 - Friday, November 4, 2022 - link

    A couple years ago WD tried to get rid of some redundant HD brands. Then they brought them back, so sales must have suffered.

    Best Buy does sell large HDs, up to 20TB, but naturally in a consumer friendly package (external USB). If you want a bare drive just remove it from the package.
  • Soulkeeper - Friday, November 4, 2022 - link

    The toshiba enterprise drives are the best choice imo.
    Essentially priced similar, or cheaper, than the consumer WD/seagate drives.
    I'm happy with mine.
    I also like rooting for the underdog.
  • GeoffreyA - Saturday, November 5, 2022 - link

    I reckon most people are buying ordinary Seagate Barrucudas and WD Blues. Not saying those are recommended but they are common and cheap. Really, can most people afford a Gold? Even a Red is costlier than the Blue. At the end of the day, cost wins. Last year, I bought a 4 TB Blue, the WD40EZAZ, and while I was sceptical of SMR, it works well and is fast. Space-wise, it's divine. How long it will last, I don't know but am hoping for the best.
  • kpb321 - Saturday, November 5, 2022 - link

    People on the tech sites really seem to hate on the SMR drives but if you are going with a hard drive you've already decided performance isn't the top priority otherwise you'd be using an SSD. A SMR HD really isn't bad as long as you are avoiding it's worst case scenarios and can be noticeably cheaper. I picked up a WD Blue of the same model too and for $50 it's a really good 4tb hd. I've got no complaints about it. I suppose a non-SMR drive would have been faster initially cloning the data over from my old drive but I just let it run overnight and it was fine. Haven't noticed any slowness with it in day to day use.
  • GeoffreyA - Sunday, November 6, 2022 - link

    I've had the same experience. No complaints and it works fast for the most part. Only on rare occasions when the SMR trimming or garbage collection coincides with writing does it slow a bit. But rare because usually Windows does that when idle. All in all, great drive.
  • ballsystemlord - Saturday, November 5, 2022 - link

    @Ganesh Toshiba has a cheaper 18TB HDD. You did not list it $298: https://www.newegg.com/toshiba-mg09aca18te-18tb/p/...

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