HDD Comparison: Popular Hard Drives

Hard drives still win on dollars-per-terabyte for bulk storage, backups, and NAS. Below are common consumer and NAS-class models — match RPM, workload rating, and CMR vs SMR to how you actually use the drive.

Links go to official merchant or provider sites. When Usual Deals has a configured affiliate relationship, those outbound links may be tagged automatically; otherwise they are plain product/provider URLs. We do not invent commissions on unwrapped links.

Name	Class / typical use	Price	Highlights	Link
Seagate IronWolf	NAS CMR · 7200 or 5400 RPM by capacity	Check price	Built for multi-bay NAS; AgileArray and Rescue plans on many SKUs	Check price
WD Red Plus	NAS CMR · midrange workloads	Check price	Popular for home/small-office NAS; check CMR labeling per capacity	Check price
Seagate BarraCuda	Desktop · everyday storage	Check price	Common internal upgrade for PCs and DVR-style bulk storage	Check price
WD Black	Performance desktop · higher RPM	Check price	Faster spinning desktop drive for game libraries and creators	Check price
Toshiba N300	NAS · up to high capacities	Check price	NAS-oriented alternative often competitive on price/TB	Check price
WD Elements / My Passport	External USB · portable or desktop	Check price	Simple plug-and-play backups; watch for frequent retail sales	Check price

Buying tips

Use NAS / RAID-rated drives (e.g. IronWolf, Red Plus) for 24/7 multi-bay systems; desktop drives are fine for single-disk backups.
Prefer CMR for RAID rebuilds and heavy random writes; avoid SMR for arrays when possible.
External USB drives are convenient for offsite backups — check whether the enclosure uses a standard SATA drive you can reuse later.
Always budget for a second copy of important data (3-2-1 backup rule).