For bulk storage in October 2026, a large hard drive is still the cheapest option by a wide margin: a 12TB Seagate IronWolf at $499.99 works out to about $46 per terabyte over five years including electricity, our arithmetic at the US average residential rate of 18.31 cents per kWh (EIA, July 2026). A 2TB NVMe SSD at $249 comes to about $125 per terabyte, and cloud storage runs $300 per terabyte or more over the same five years. Flash has been climbing in price all year, so the gap between hard drives and SSDs is wider than it was a year ago.
Purchase Price per Terabyte
These are the lowest US prices we read on each device type. Retailers and dates differ, so this is a rough ladder, not a controlled test. The hard drive prices come from Newegg listings read on October 13, 2026, several of them from marketplace sellers. The NVMe price is from Tom’s Hardware’s SSD tracker (last updated September 29), and the SATA SSD price is an Amazon US figure on Storage Disk Prices dated September 26.
| Drive | Price | Per TB (our arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|
| Toshiba N300 Pro 20TB HDD (bulk) | $709.99 | $35.50 |
| Seagate IronWolf 12TB HDD | $499.99 | $41.67 |
| Seagate IronWolf 10TB HDD | $463.10 | $46.31 |
| Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB HDD | $236.99 | $59.25 |
| WD Red Plus 2TB HDD | $154.99 | $77.50 |
| Silicon Power UD90 2TB NVMe | $249 | $124.50 |
| Silicon Power UD90 1TB NVMe | $149 | $149.00 |
| Crucial MX500 2TB SATA SSD | $279.99 | $140.00 |
A second source agrees on the hard drive end. DataCenterDisk, an affiliate-funded price tracker, showed a median of $43.50 per terabyte across 321 in-stock hard drive listings on Amazon on October 13. We did not find a trustworthy year-ago hard drive price, so we are not claiming a trend for hard drives. Our RAM and SSD price guide covers the flash side, where Tom’s Hardware documented a 2TB Samsung drive going from $113 to $363.49 in a year.
Note that the SATA drive costs more per terabyte than the cheapest NVMe in this table. That comes from different retailers and dates, and SATA offers no speed advantage, so for new purchases NVMe usually makes more sense unless you need the 2.5-inch form factor.
Adding Electricity
Hard drives spin and draw power around the clock in a NAS or backup box. Flash drives draw almost nothing when idle. We used published data sheets, applied them year-round, and priced the energy as watts ÷ 1,000 × 8,760 hours × $0.1831.
- Hard drives: the WD Red Plus data sheet lists the 12TB model at 8.8 W reading or writing and 6.1 W idle, and the 2TB model at 2.4 W idle. We read the PDF as plain text and its table layout was jumbled, so confirm those rows against the sheet. We applied WD’s figures to the Seagate and Toshiba drives as stand-ins, because we did not find an official Seagate power spec.
- NVMe: Samsung’s 990 EVO Plus 2TB page gives 4.6 W average reading and 60 mW typical idle. That is a different drive from the one priced above, so treat it as a proxy.
- SATA SSD: we found no verified power figure, so the SATA row has purchase price only.
Idle is the fair case for a backup disk that mostly sits. Active is the stress case for a drive that is constantly busy.
| Drive | Idle power, 5 years | Active power, 5 years |
|---|---|---|
| 12TB hard drive (6.1 W / 8.8 W) | $48.92 | $70.57 |
| 2TB hard drive (2.4 W idle) | $19.25 | not computed |
| 2TB NVMe (0.06 W / 4.6 W) | $0.48 | $36.89 |
Five-Year Totals with Cloud Alongside
Prices for the cloud rows come from Apple’s iCloud+ plan page (published September 16, 2026) and Backblaze’s B2 pricing page, which lists $6.95 per terabyte per month. Our cloud storage price guide compares the consumer plans in more depth.
| Option | Capacity | 5-year cost | Per TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| IronWolf 12TB HDD, idle power | 12TB | $548.91 | $45.74 |
| IronWolf 12TB HDD, active power | 12TB | $570.56 | $47.55 |
| Two 12TB HDDs, mirrored, idle power | 12TB usable | $1,097.82 | $91.49 |
| WD Red Plus 2TB HDD, idle power | 2TB | $174.24 | $87.12 |
| UD90 2TB NVMe, idle power | 2TB | $249.48 | $124.74 |
| UD90 2TB NVMe, active power | 2TB | $285.89 | $142.95 |
| iCloud+ 2TB at $9.99 a month | 2TB | $599.40 | $299.70 |
| iCloud+ 12TB at $59.99 a month | 12TB | $3,599.40 | $299.95 |
| Backblaze B2 at $6.95 per TB a month | 12TB | $5,004.00 | $417.00 |
The B2 total excludes download fees. Backblaze says it lets you download for free up to three times your average monthly storage, then charges $0.01 per gigabyte. The drive totals exclude the computer, NAS enclosure or external case you need to run them. Our homelab NAS electricity guide prices a Synology box, which draws 14.69 W in use and 4.41 W when hibernating, according to Synology’s spec page.
Where the Break-Even Falls
Against iCloud, the 12TB hard drive’s whole five-year cost, $548.91, equals about 9.2 months of the $59.99 plan. Against Backblaze B2 at 12TB, it equals about 6.6 months. The 2TB NVMe at $249.48 equals about 25 months of the $9.99 iCloud 2TB plan. After those points, local storage is cheaper if the drive survives and you count your own time as free.
That last condition is a big one. Cloud storage includes the redundancy, the off-site copy and the maintenance. A single hard drive on a shelf has none of those, and the mirrored pair in the table doubles the cost to protect against one disk failing.
A Copy Is Not a Backup
A mirror protects against one drive dying. It does not protect against deletion, theft, fire or ransomware. The usual rule is three copies, on two kinds of media, with one off-site. In practice, a 12TB drive for local bulk storage plus a cloud service for the irreplaceable files is a mix that costs far less than putting everything in the cloud. Backblaze’s personal backup plan is listed at $9 a month for one computer, or $540 over five years by our arithmetic, though it is aimed at backing up one computer rather than a NAS, so check its terms before relying on it.
Ways to Cut the Bill
- Buy larger hard drives. Per-terabyte price falls from $77.50 at 2TB to $41.67 at 12TB in our table, though capacity per bay matters too.
- Use NVMe only for what needs speed. Keep active projects on flash and archives on spinning disks.
- Spin down idle disks. Drives rated at 0.3 W in standby on WD’s sheet cost almost nothing to leave unused. We did not verify that every NAS software sets this up by default.
- Back up only what matters to the cloud. Pay for 2TB instead of 12TB: $599.40 against $3,599.40 over five years.
- Check live prices. Newegg’s marketplace listings change daily, and storage is in a volatile market.
Bottom Line
For large backups and NAS storage in 2026, hard drives win at roughly $42 to $47 per terabyte over five years, and cloud storage is the most expensive at $300 or more. NVMe costs about $125 per terabyte but needs almost no electricity. Choose cloud for the small set of files you cannot lose, a big hard drive for the rest, and flash for speed.
FAQ
How much does a terabyte of storage cost in 2026?
On October 13, 2026, Newegg listings put hard drives at about $35 to $59 per terabyte for 4TB to 20TB models. The cheapest 2TB NVMe in Tom’s Hardware’s tracker was $249, or $124.50 per terabyte.
Is a hard drive cheaper than an SSD over five years?
For capacity, yes. Our calculation puts a 12TB drive near $46 per terabyte with electricity against about $125 for a 2TB NVMe. The SSD uses much less power, but not enough to close that gap at 18.31 cents per kWh.
How much electricity does a hard drive use per year?
By our arithmetic, a 12TB drive idling at 6.1 W uses about 53 kWh a year, which is $9.78 at 18.31 cents per kWh. At 8.8 W active it is $14.11. These use a Western Digital data sheet as a stand-in for other brands.
Is cloud storage worth it compared with buying drives?
For irreplaceable files, often yes, because it gives an off-site copy. For bulk storage it is much more expensive: iCloud+ 12TB comes to $3,599.40 over five years against $548.91 for a 12TB hard drive. Many people use both.