In 2026, a terabyte of hard drive storage can cost as little as N/A/TB, while NVMe SSDs start around N/A/TB. The overall cheapest storage right now is N/A/TB.
Cost per terabyte by storage type
Why does price per terabyte vary?
Technology: HDDs are cheapest; SATA SSDs are faster and cost more; NVMe is fastest and usually the most per TB.
Capacity: Larger drives spread fixed costs over more terabytes — 8TB+ HDDs often have the lowest £/TB.
Internal vs external: External enclosures add cost, but offer portability and simplicity.
How much storage do you actually need?
| Use case | Recommended | Best drive type |
|---|---|---|
| Documents & web | 256GB - 512GB | SATA SSD or NVMe |
| Gaming | 1TB - 2TB | NVMe SSD |
| Photo library | 1TB - 4TB | External HDD or SSD |
| 4K video editing | 2TB - 8TB | NVMe SSD + HDD backup |
| Home NAS | 4TB - 20TB+ | Internal HDD |
| Full PC backup | 1TB - 5TB | External HDD |