Choosing a 14TB NAS drive
Today the best value is Toshiba 14TB SATA 512e 256MB Cache 7200RPM 3.5" SATA 6. at £344.07 (£24.58/TB). At 14TB the enterprise drives — Seagate Exos, Toshiba MG and WD Ultrastar — are often cheaper per terabyte than the NAS-branded lines, and they carry 5-year warranties. The catch is noise and heat: they are built for server rooms, so a NAS that lives in a quiet room may be better with IronWolf Pro or Red Pro. Big drives also take a long time to rebuild after a failure (often a day or more), which is why RAID 6 or a second backup becomes important at this size.
- 2-bay, RAID 1 (mirror): 14TB usable from 2 × 14TB, about £688.14 in drives at today’s best price.
- 4-bay, RAID 5: 42TB usable from 4 × 14TB, about £1,376.28 in drives at today’s best price.
- 5-bay, RAID 5: 56TB usable from 5 × 14TB, about £1,720.35 in drives at today’s best price.
- 8-bay, RAID 6: 84TB usable from 8 × 14TB, about £2,752.56 in drives at today’s best price.
14TB NAS drives by family
| Family | Drives | Best £/TB | Best-value model |
|---|---|---|---|
| WD Red Pro | 2 | £50.00/TB | WD Red Pro 14 TB 3.5 Inch NAS Internal Hard D |
| Toshiba N300 | 3 | £41.36/TB | Toshiba 14TB N300 NAS 3.5’’ SATA Internal |
| Seagate Exos | 1 | £38.99/TB | Seagate 14TB HDD Exos X14 7200 RPM 512e/4Kn S |
| Toshiba MG | 2 | £24.58/TB | Toshiba 14TB SATA 512e 256MB Cache 7200RPM 3. |
| WD Ultrastar | 1 | £31.79/TB | Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC530 |
Buy drives from more than one batch when filling a multi-bay array, to cut the risk of two failing together. For the full picture see our NAS drive guide, SMR vs CMR and when to replace NAS drives, or compare every size on the NAS drive hub.
Frequently asked questions
How does disks.co.uk rank 14TB NAS drives?
We rank every 14TB NAS drives by real cost per terabyte (£/TB) — the live Amazon.co.uk price divided by capacity — so the best value appears at the top. Prices refresh several times a day from Keepa, with 24-hour movement and all-time-low flags.
What is the cheapest 14TB NAS drives right now?
The drive at the top of the table above is the cheapest of the 14TB NAS drives by £/TB today. At larger sizes the enterprise Exos, Toshiba MG and Ultrastar drives are often cheaper per terabyte than the NAS-branded lines; they are louder, but carry 5-year warranties.
Are all of these drives CMR?
The NAS-rated families listed here — IronWolf and IronWolf Pro, WD Red Plus and Red Pro, Toshiba N300 — and the enterprise drives all use conventional (CMR) recording. The one to watch is plain "WD Red" (no Plus or Pro) in the 2–6TB sizes, which is shingled (SMR) and a poor fit for RAID. See SMR vs CMR.
How many 14TB NAS drives do I need?
It depends on the bay count and RAID level: two drives in RAID 1 give you one drive's space with a full mirror; four in RAID 5 give three drives' worth and survive one failure. The section below works out usable space and cost at this size, and our NAS drive guide covers the choice in more detail.
