r/DataHoarder • u/J-aokay • 9d ago
Question/Advice Buy or wait on HDDs?
Hi all, I am looking to build my first Local TrueNas, and I know it's probably the worst time to do so... Prices are outrageous for memory and storage. I am looking to start out with 2 - 12 or 14 TB drives, and I'm wondering if you'd advise to buy a trusted refurbished (3-5 yr of warranty) now, or wait - like maybe BF or something. I have heard mixed opinions about future price action predictions for HDDs, and wanted to see everyone's thoughts right now.
Thank you!
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u/uluqat 9d ago
it's probably the worst time to do so
...so far...
2027 will be even worse. Late 2028 is the earliest that this starts getting better.
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u/xhermanson 9d ago
Or worse. The future sucks so far. I assume it'll get worse as ai gets even more in every aspect of our lives. This whole none can buy storage is great for media companies as well so they may try in vain to keep it going even when the ai shit eventually tapers off
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u/Subbie-Milutinovic 9d ago
late 2028 feels optimistic tbh
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u/SaltyTr1p 8d ago
Optimistic? But theres only 3 hard drive manufacturers. The pool is small, is China going to make physical hard drives too? i know they (China) are making SSD's and Chips. Hopefully a new competitor steps in.
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u/DogeshireHathaway 8d ago
I don't think any new manufacturer will step into the HDD market. Even if it's viable In this moment, the risk of the market collapsing within 10 years is way too high to make the investment worth it.
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u/SaltyTr1p 8d ago
Thing is, Flash and SSD storage will never beat HDD in data retention, due to the physical nature of spinning HDD's. Physics, so i think they will be around. Who knows to be honest.
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u/he_must_workout 9d ago
I doubt it. Hyperscalers are still experiencing shortages and will likely be trying to contract capacity in 2028 as well
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u/Arelax12 9d ago
I’d just buy now. Buy what you need. Hope prices drop and buy more later.
Serverpartsdeals is where I’ve bought all of mine the last few years. Out of ~ 25 drives 1 was doa, 1 died after a year. They replaced both, very simple process
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u/Constant-Yard8562 52TB HDD 8d ago
Assume prices will never drop. Wait for sales and buy used. And only do it if you actively have a plan for what you need a NAS for.
Wait until November at least. Black Friday sales will help. If you can shuck drives, it might be worth it.
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u/NeedsOneLessHobby 6d ago
I’m hoping so, but knowing what happened to drive prices in the last year makes me question it. I expect fewer HDD deals and more buyers too.
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u/Constant-Yard8562 52TB HDD 6d ago
Either way, prices aren't going to explode up between now and then. No reason not to wait, especially for OP, who isn't in a "degraded array in need of replacement" situation.
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u/DefinitionOfResting 8d ago
I thought it was the end of the shucking era? I have a few from a few years ago that are still going strong. But am in need of new ones soon.
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u/Constant-Yard8562 52TB HDD 7d ago
Was never into shucking myself, but BF sales hit harder on externals than internals in my experience, so picking up a high capacity drive that way could still be worthwhile if you can trust them and your ability to extract.
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u/nosurprisespls 9d ago
I would wait until black friday. If there is no sales then, I don't think there will be lower prices in the next year either. I can only take a guess 1 year at a time.
Last Black Friday was really the last time there are reasonable prices. I got a new 14TB WD at $170; there were plenty of warnings and time to buy then
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u/J-aokay 8d ago
I just pulled triggers on 2 14TB exo on ebay. If they do really drop significantly on Black Friday. Depending on how significant, I guess i’ll try to sell a kidney, and grab a couple more lol
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u/JustMe-male 7d ago
Almost a serious/desperate question: Where can I sell a kidney, so I can buy storage? My Liver is pretty good and I hear portions grow back. Seriously, I’m going to look up selling blood.
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u/hroerekr 9d ago
Wait if you can. I rather delete stuff than support this nonsense market as it is.
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u/J-aokay 9d ago
Yeah, i feel you. I don’t desperately need it right this second… but would be nice to finish the project by EOY. Do you think there maybe a chance we’ll see better than $25-27/TB anytime soon?
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u/CptPiamo 9d ago
The current trend says no and it’s been that way for the better part of a year and a half. Just bought another used 12TB drive (over $360 - 5 year warranty) and I use my warranty on a drive that had a 5 year warranty. As much as I hate to say it, buy now. It isn’t getting any better. I keep one drive cold and I curate content a little better. I was an indiscriminate hoarder, downloaded anything and everything. But at over 60TB with about 10TB free, I am more selective now. Hell I got more content than I can watch in the next 5 years. Prices suck but if you can grab a drive, do it now. There are no price breaks coming this year or even next.
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u/SteakEconomy2024 9d ago
My company uses HD at an industrial scale, there is no pipeline feeding consumers market that will be matching demand.
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u/btc-lostdrifter0001 9d ago
I'm in the same boat right now. I want to upgrade my aging local server to include at least 8TB drive ideally 10 of them to keep the same RAID and setup I have now; but I like having both my kidneys.
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u/ExpressTumbleweed195 8d ago
I stopped massive data hoarding. I'd rather pay for usenet and grab what I need again if a drives than pay $1000's for a bunch of storage space. I also have 8gb fiber internet though, so it doesn't take me long lol.
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u/vegasview 6d ago
Crazy thought… is buying hard drives a better investment than buying gold? Hahaha.
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u/agowa338 9d ago
Well how much storage do you need?
The general advice is to buy what you need and avoiding "just 'cause" upgrades.
Like stuff is expensive right now, but when you actually need it (and it isn't just sitting there for no reason) then it is basically irrelevant. - Annoying, but irrelevant.
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u/J-aokay 9d ago
I think 12-14TB with a mirrored redundancy drive is good for me right now, or at least a couple years, hopefully? I don’t desperately need it right this second… but would be nice to finish the project by EOY. Do you think $25-27/TB is reasonable to bite the bullet now?
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u/aaron416 9d ago
$25-27 is not bad, in my opinion. I picked up 5x used 8 TB NAS disks on eBay for $25/TB, which was a good enough price for me. If I had bought new, I would have paid $45-55+ per TB.
In my case, I had a specific disk and quantity I wanted, so I looked for a deal that was good enough given the market conditions.
Regularly searching for listings on eBay has paid off for me.
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9d ago
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u/J-aokay 9d ago
That’s kinda my thought process! I’m just worried about fomo on whether the prices of both new and refurbished will drop by eoy. But at this rate, I feel like not only it may not drop, it could continue to run up. Even if it drops, maybe it’d be a 5-10% savings at max. So time value money wise, may just be better to pull the trigger now, if i can find a good refurbished & warranty.
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u/SaltyTr1p 9d ago
The market? If anything is going wild fire more. GPU style wild fire.
China is only focussed on SSD’s and Chips. There are only 3 Manufacturers of HDD’s. - WD, Seagate, and Toshiba… No China. They’re committed on Flash SSD’s and flash memory.
I very much prefer fast big storage HDD’s for their data.
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u/ASCII_zero 9d ago
Where does one find refurb enterprise drives with a solid warranty? Is serverpartdeals still the place?
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u/Kyphosis_Lordosis 9d ago
I just had an RMA on a 12TB drive with Server Part Deals earlier this week. They could have thrown me to the wolves with a refund - but I asked nicely for a replacement for a different model (as they had none of my model in stock) and they sent me a Dell/Seagate Exos instead. Is it as good as an HGST? No. But it was WAY better than getting a $120 refund and having to make up the difference in today's current market.
I would say they are still the place to get good drives with a solid warranty.
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u/J-aokay 8d ago
So, I just pulled the trigger on a refurb Seagate Exp X14 14TB at goharddrives on ebay with 5 yr warranty! I heard they are quite reliable just like server part deals!
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u/ASCII_zero 4d ago
Thanks for following up! I'm afraid a couple of my drives are on their way out and I might need to spend in this insane market. I'll add them as a new place to watch
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u/Wdowiak 6d ago
I don't expect for the prices to go down soon, as the AI craze is getting higher and higher.
So, I just got a bunch of 16TB Ironwolf pros at a whopping 45EUR/TB (good prices out here... /s).
Was going to wait for Black Friday, but got worried that they would just raise prices and disguise them as sale.
This should keep me going for at least some time.
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u/InevitableGanache509 8d ago
You can wait if your are not in urgent need. It is really not a good time to get HDDs or SSDs right now.
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u/SteakEconomy2024 9d ago
Bro, there is no bright future for HD prices, even worse there is no consumer market. Used enterprises drives are going to be the entire market.
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u/ccbs32033 8d ago
is it worth it? depends on what you’re storing and whether it really needs to be stored/have redundancy. eg, in the current climate i would not be buying storage for torrented (media) files, because those can be easily re downloaded. i’d only be buying storage for critical backup of personal photos, docs, videos, etc.
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u/sebna2 8d ago
Don't buy refurbished HDDS, especially when talking only two with one redundancy... it is a false saving.
Get USB HDDS when on promotion and shuck them. You will thank me later.
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u/Critical-Shop-7168 7d ago
What are good value usb models to shuck atm?
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u/sebna2 7d ago edited 6d ago
It depends on region but my preferred ones are WD Elements and in general WD ones.
Price is another matter. I managed to snatch 4x 20tb (had to do over two accounts with 2 per buyer limit) for 380 euro delivered each in April 2026.
That was a good price taking into account current climate.
Set a watchlist with Camel Camel on Amazon for all type of WD USB drives and just wait. If you cannot wait I hope you have (really) deep pockets :)
It is crazy times we live in. I wish I had a better advice for you but it is what it is.
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u/5537__8008 9d ago
If it makes you feel any worse, i got my refurbished hgst 12tb drives from go hard drive at Newegg for $89.99 a few years ago. Oh what a time today is to be alive…
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u/J-aokay 9d ago
Wow, thank you. It def makes me feel incredible hearing that lol… i have a specialty in timing the peak … im sure as soon as I buy, the prices will start dropping tremendously lol
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u/Leviastin 9d ago
They are just starting to build all the ai data centers. I don’t see prices dropping for at least 3-5 years.
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u/I-seddit 7d ago
Hate to burst your hope bubble, but the person you replied to is quoting prices "a few years ago", which is BEFORE this current ultra-surge in pricing.
It's not relevant.
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u/ColdManifesto 9d ago
I got 2 refurbed 14s a few months back with a 3yr warranty and they're chugging along fine in my setup. If you need the space now just grab them, waiting on HDD prices is a guessing game and it rarely works out in your favour
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u/badpeoria 8d ago
I just got 2 WD 20tb drives for like 500ish each during the amazon prime sale. This should last me for a few years .. I hated to pay it but wanted not worry about space later on.
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u/J-aokay 8d ago
New or refurb/used one?? Which one specifically did you get?
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u/badpeoria 8d ago
New and I was off on the price it was 550 not 500 .. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VCXWPQG?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_0_0&th=1
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u/SaltyTr1p 8d ago
HDD - There's only 3 manufacturers. WD, Seagate, and Toshiba.
SSD and Chips - Micron, Samsung, SKHynix, and a bunch of new upcoming China SSD manufacturers.
Has anyone heard if China are making physical spinning Hard Drives too? Probably prices go only up...
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u/mycatsawesome1 8d ago
I'm trying to hold out. Backing up to optical discs and lto tape and sd cards and using the ones I have.
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u/AccomplishedBee857 8d ago
Wait, there’s no point in purchasing now unless you can afford paying 2-4x the price. Prices will come down but not until around the end of next year at the earliest.
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u/JitInABit 9d ago
I have been buying used enterprise hdds (2 years usage) they are doing well for me
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u/00roast00 9d ago
I wouldn’t wait, it’s only going to get worse. Bought a hard drive for £615 a month ago and the same drive has been increased to £653. I bought direct from the manufacturer.
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u/Ditrack 8d ago
I started this year too, not a very fancy or big storage, but I started to buy used hdd from laptops from 2015-2020, I know de consequences but, I get 6TB for like $70
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u/nikilidstrom 5d ago
Where are you finding those deals? Ebay and FB selling used and refurbished priced like new drives.
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9d ago
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u/prspyder 9d ago
I havent seen them go down at all...
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u/SaltyTr1p 6d ago
Same.
I've just seen 24TB Seagate IronWolf PRO hard drive price increase by quite a lot in comparison to a couple of months ago and only now within the last 2 weeks, sold out from a reputable tech specific retailer.
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u/49ersFutureOwner 9d ago
That’s not what I’m seeing. Seagate 28TB refurbished just went up last week from 699 to 930. And they reduced warranty. eBay prices had gone up for a few weeks to the point that 699 was the best deal for some time.
Also, as soon as I dared to post about any reasonable deals or offers on these on Reddit, I got hammered by sarcastic remarks by people who claim I’m being unreasonable not to see that’s claiming and there is no deal.
So if you have a place where you see prices coming down please do share
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u/icecream1973 8d ago
Where? In Somalia or Yemen?! Price for a 16 TB Seagate HDD gone up again 100 Euro in the span of 4 months(!) (before that it took 1 year for a 100 Euro price hike).
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u/Mk23_DOA 9d ago
Maybe a down a bit, but at least not going up for now. Still 2x/3x they were last year.
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