disksUnderstanding price per terabyte (£/TB)
Comparing storage on sticker price alone is misleading. A £60 drive isn't cheaper than a £90 drive if it holds half as much. Price per terabyte fixes that.
The maths
Price per terabyte is simply the drive's price divided by its capacity in terabytes. A £90 drive holding 4 TB works out at £22.50/TB; a £60 drive holding 2 TB is £30/TB — so the more expensive drive is actually the better deal. Every table on this site is sorted by this figure by default, so the best value sits at the top.
Why capacity tiers matter
£/TB usually falls as capacity rises — an 8TB drive is often better value per terabyte than a 2TB one. But it isn't linear: the very largest drives carry a premium, and there's normally a sweet spot in the middle of the range. Browse our 4TB and 8TB pages to find it.
What £/TB doesn't tell you
- Speed: an SSD and an HDD at the same £/TB are not equivalent — see SSD vs HDD.
- Endurance & warranty: NAS and enterprise drives cost more per terabyte but are built for sustained use.
- Condition: renewed/used drives show a low £/TB but carry more risk.
Use £/TB to shortlist, then sanity-check speed, warranty and condition before buying.