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There is no single price for a terabyte. A terabyte on a consumer hard drive is a one-time hardware purchase; on an SSD, it costs more in exchange for speed and convenience; in cloud storage, it is a recurring service charge. And if the data matters, you may need two or three copies—not just one.
As a current U.S.-priced cloud reference, Backblaze lists hot object storage at $6.95 per TB per month, while its comparison page shows selected rates of $20–$26 per TB per month for Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon S3. Those are storage charges, not all-in bills. Local drive prices vary by capacity, model, country, retailer, and sale, so a universal current hardware price would be misleading. The useful question is: what kind of terabyte do you need, for how long, and how many copies?
One terabyte, several different costs
Storage prices have fallen by many orders of magnitude over the long run, but the phrase “cost per terabyte” can describe very different things:
- Raw local capacity: a drive’s purchase price divided by its advertised capacity. Hard disk drives (HDDs) are generally the low-cost choice for bulk capacity; solid-state drives (SSDs) cost more but are faster, quieter, and more resistant to physical shock.
- Usable capacity: space remaining after formatting, RAID configuration, filesystem overhead, snapshots, and any capacity you reserve.
- Protected capacity: the cost of enough storage for a primary copy and one or more independent backups.
- Cloud capacity: a recurring charge, potentially joined by retrieval, data-transfer, request, replication, or minimum-retention fees.
These are not interchangeable measures. A $100 local drive is not directly comparable with one month of a cloud subscription, and a 4 TB drive is not necessarily 4 TB of usable or protected space.
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First, what does “1 TB” mean?
Drive makers use decimal units: 1 TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1,000 GB. Computers may display the same byte count as about 931 GiB, because a gibibyte (GiB) is 1,073,741,824 bytes. Technically, TB and GB are decimal units; TiB and GiB are binary.
A drive’s advertised capacity is its raw capacity before formatting. Formatting and filesystem metadata take some space, though usually far less than the difference between 1 TB and 931 GiB. A RAID array, reserved space, snapshots, or a NAS setup can reduce the capacity available for files much more substantially. When comparing offers, check whether both numbers refer to decimal TB, and distinguish advertised capacity from usable capacity.
How storage got so much cheaper
Historical estimates show a striking long-term decline, from extremely high inflation-adjusted costs per terabyte in the 1950s and 1960s to consumer-scale storage. The broad direction is clear; the decline was not a smooth, fixed rate. Higher recording density, better manufacturing, larger production volumes, and competition all helped lower the cost per byte.
Our World in Data’s historical series is expressed in inflation-adjusted U.S. dollars per terabyte and, in the currently surfaced dataset, runs through 2023. It records the cheapest historical price reached in each year—not the average price paid by every buyer. Its accompanying overview traces the shift from early storage to magnetic disks, hard drives, and solid-state storage.
A separate measure offers a different lens: the Federal Reserve publishes a computer-storage price index based on matched-model pricing and IDC data. Its research notes that HDD areal-density growth slowed from roughly 30% a year in 2003–2010 to about 10% a year afterward, one reason later price declines were less spectacular than earlier ones. A supply disruption can also interrupt the downward trend: Backblaze documented the effect of the 2011 Thailand floods on hard-drive prices. See the Federal Reserve index, its analysis of storage prices and density, and Backblaze’s account of the flood-related price disruption.
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Backblaze has also reported that the average cost per terabyte fell 87.4% since 2009 for the drive purchases covered by its analysis. That is evidence about its own bulk data-center purchasing—not a universal consumer retail average. Its earlier historical discussion compared more than $1 million per GB in 1981 with less than $0.05 per GB in 2011; those figures describe a long-run historical comparison, not current drive prices. See Backblaze’s cost-per-terabyte analysis.
HDD or SSD: what are you paying for?
An HDD uses spinning disks and moving heads. An SSD stores data in flash memory. The right comparison is not only dollars per advertised TB; it is also what the drive needs to do.
| Option | What it tends to offer | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| External HDD | Low-cost bulk capacity for backups, media, and files accessed less often. | Portable 2.5-inch versus desktop 3.5-inch design, warranty, interface, whether the unit is new or refurbished, and sale pricing. |
| Internal HDD | Bulk desktop or NAS capacity, with consumer, NAS-rated, and enterprise models serving different workloads. | CMR versus SMR recording, workload rating, warranty, power, vibration, noise, and compatibility with the intended enclosure or array. |
| SATA SSD | Lower latency, quiet operation, and no moving parts; often a sensible upgrade for everyday computing or active files. | Drive endurance, warranty, capacity, and the limits of the SATA interface. |
| NVMe SSD | High-throughput storage for suitable desktops and laptops, including active projects and demanding applications. | PCIe generation, NAND type (such as TLC or QLC), DRAM design, endurance rating, heat, cooling, and device compatibility. |
HDDs are usually the capacity bargain, while SSDs sell speed, low latency, silence, and convenience. That does not mean every SSD is a better choice for a given workload, or that every HDD is interchangeable. Prices shift with NAND supply, drive capacity, sales, warranty, and product class. A low price per TB alone does not establish that a drive suits sustained writing, RAID, or a NAS. In particular, some SMR drives may be unsuitable for certain NAS, RAID, or sustained-write workloads.
Higher-capacity models often have a lower price per TB, but not always. Enclosure, warranty, promotion, and drive class can change the comparison. Refurbished or shucked drives—internal drives removed from external enclosures—may also bring warranty, cooling, connector, and identification complications. Compare like with like and verify terms before buying.
The NAS and RAID capacity trap
A four-drive system with 4 TB per drive contains 16 TB of raw capacity. Its usable capacity depends on how it is configured:
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- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
- RAID 0: roughly all raw capacity, but no fault tolerance; a drive failure can destroy the array.
- RAID 1: roughly half the raw capacity in a mirrored two-drive arrangement.
- RAID 5: roughly one drive’s capacity used for parity.
- RAID 6: roughly two drives’ capacity used for parity.
- RAID 10: roughly half the raw capacity, combining mirroring and striping.
These are simplified capacity estimates; exact usable space depends on drive sizes, implementation, formatting, and system configuration. Filesystem overhead, metadata, snapshots, reserved capacity, and space kept free for healthy operation reduce what you can actually store further. In mixed-size arrays, the usable amount can depend on the smallest drive or on the NAS’s particular layout.
RAID can improve availability when certain drives fail, but RAID is not a backup. It does not protect against accidental deletion, ransomware, theft, fire, or an enclosure failure that takes out the entire system. A NAS also costs more than its drives: include the enclosure, network equipment if needed, electricity if it stays on, and time spent managing and replacing equipment.
Cloud storage: a monthly service, not a drive purchase
Cloud object storage can provide metered capacity, remote access, and infrastructure managed by a provider. It can be useful when data must be available in several locations, capacity changes over time, or you want a copy away from your home or office. It is not simply a hard drive in another place: depending on the service, the bill and recovery experience can also reflect transfer, requests, retention rules, access delays, and region.
Hot storage and the current price snapshot
Backblaze’s pricing comparison lists pay-as-you-go hot storage at $6.95 per TB per month for B2, compared with selected rates of $26 for Amazon S3, $20 for Microsoft Azure, and $23 for Google Cloud. The comparison uses published U.S. West-region rates and stated assumptions, and the page notes that competitor pricing varies by region, stored amount, and other factors. These are dated pricing signals, not universal quotes or a neutral market-wide survey. Check the underlying providers’ calculators and pricing pages for the exact service, region, storage class, and usage you expect. See Backblaze’s comparison and B2 pricing, plus official Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage pricing.
Backblaze also states that B2 has no minimum file-size or storage-duration fees, includes the first 10 GB, and allows free egress up to three times average monthly stored data subject to conditions. Its transaction-pricing page lists storage at $0.00695 per GB per month after the first 10 GB. Egress above the stated allowance, transactions, taxes, and other conditions may affect the actual bill; check the current B2 transaction-pricing details.
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- Easily store and access 4TB of content on the go with the Seagate Portable Drive, a USB external hard drive.Specific uses: Personal
- Designed to work with Windows or Mac computers, this external hard drive makes backup a snap just drag and drop
- To get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for automatic recognition no software required
- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
In Backblaze’s cited comparison, egress is free for B2 subject to conditions and then $0.01/GB over the stated allowance; the selected figures for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are $0.09/GB, $0.08/GB, and $0.11/GB, respectively. These are not guarantees of what any individual restore or transfer will cost. Providers may bill differently by region, destination, volume, and service configuration.
Hyperscaler storage can make economic sense when data already lives alongside that provider’s compute, analytics, or application infrastructure. The headline storage rate may be only one piece: data transfer, API requests, lifecycle transitions, retrieval, minimum storage duration, and replication can change the total. A service’s ecosystem integration can matter more than a simple price-per-TB comparison.
Cold and archive tiers
Archive classes may charge less to store data that is rarely accessed, but a low monthly rate can conceal minimum retention periods, retrieval charges, and delays before data is available. Restoring several terabytes in an emergency may cost more than months of storage. Before choosing an archive tier, price a realistic restore, understand its access delay, and ensure that the recovery path works when you need it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What a terabyte costs over time
A useful comparison needs a time horizon. At the cited B2 rate of $6.95 per TB per month, one TB stored continuously costs $83.40 per year before other charges, or $417 over five years if that rate remained unchanged. That arithmetic is illustrative, not a promise that the rate will remain the same.
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Now compare a hypothetical $100 local drive bought once with five years of cloud storage. The drive’s initial purchase is $100; cloud at the stated rate totals $417. But the drive’s cost is not necessarily finished at $100: you may need another drive for backup, electricity, replacement media, an enclosure, or a NAS. Cloud charges may also vary, and a large restore can add transfer or retrieval costs. The comparison changes with how long you keep the data, how often you access it, how many copies you need, and what hardware you already own.
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For example, a local primary drive and a separate local backup require about twice the data capacity before overhead. A three-copy plan with an off-site copy may require three copies’ worth of capacity across local and remote storage. Cloud can be attractive for elastic or short-term storage, remote access, and reducing hardware maintenance; local storage can be attractive for large datasets retained for years, frequent local access, network independence, and predictable upfront spending. Neither is automatically cheaper in every situation.
The real unit is often a protected terabyte
Important data should not exist in only one place. A common backup practice is the 3-2-1 approach: keep three copies, on two types of storage, with one copy off-site. It is guidance, not a legal requirement. Depending on the data and risk, two independent copies may be a reasonable minimum; three can provide better protection against a local disaster. Copies should be independent enough that one event—such as theft, ransomware, or device failure—does not erase all of them.
Storage providers may design for durability or availability through their own infrastructure, but those qualities do not make a provider-managed copy the same thing as a separately controlled backup. A useful backup plan includes access to credentials and encryption keys, a recovery procedure, and periodic restore tests. If using cloud, consider account recovery, permissions, lifecycle settings, and the possibility of provider lock-in or expensive migration.
Calculate your own cost per usable or protected TB
Start with the price and capacity relevant to your decision, then include costs that match your use case:
Price per advertised TB = purchase price ÷ advertised capacity in TB
Price per usable TB = total purchase price ÷ usable capacity in TB
Hardware cost per protected TB = drive and enclosure costs ÷ protected usable capacity
Annual cloud storage cost = monthly storage charge × 12
+ retrieval charges
+ egress charges
+ request charges
+ replication or backup costs
Effective local cost = primary storage
+ backup storage
+ enclosure or NAS
+ expected replacements
+ electricity and maintenanceFor cloud, include the planned storage class, region, average capacity, access frequency, expected restore volume, and any required second copy. For local storage, count the backup hardware and realistic usable capacity rather than just the drive label. If you need 1 TB of files plus space for growth, snapshots, or safe free capacity, do not budget on exactly 1 TB of raw media.
A quick choice guide
- Choose an HDD when you need inexpensive bulk capacity for media, archives, or backups and can tolerate mechanical hardware, noise, and slower access.
- Choose an SSD when latency, speed, portability, quiet operation, or resistance to shock matters more than the lowest price per TB.
- Choose a NAS when several devices need shared local storage and you are prepared to manage the network, drives, redundancy, and a separate backup.
- Choose cloud storage when remote access, elastic capacity, geographic separation, or avoiding hardware maintenance matters—and after you price retrieval and data transfer.
- Choose an archive tier only when delayed and potentially charged retrieval is acceptable and you have tested how recovery will work.
The bottom line
The long-term trend is unmistakable: storage has become dramatically cheaper, but the right price depends on what “a terabyte” means in your setup. HDDs remain the usual bargain for bulk local capacity; SSDs cost more for performance and convenience; cloud storage rents capacity and access month by month. To find the true cost, compare the same time period and count usable space, backups, redundancy, transfer, power, and replacement—not just the number on a drive box or a cloud pricing page.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
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