Our picks · Reliability facts first
Best HDDs
The internal hard drives we would buy, up to three per tier, each chosen from the maker’s data sheet, a saved review and, where Backblaze runs the model, its lifetime failure rate. There are no prices here: every link goes to the retailer, where the current price is shown.
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Best pick in each tier
Desktop and backup
Photo: Toshiba Toshiba X300 Pro 12TB
Tom’s Hardware names it the best high-end desktop drive: CMR at 7200 rpm, a 512 MiB cache, 300 TB a year and a five-year warranty.
Check price at Amazon Why we picked it Paid link
NAS
Photo: Seagate Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB
Tom’s Hardware picks it as the best NAS drive; Seagate rates it 550 TB a year and includes three years of data recovery.
Check price at Amazon Why we picked it Paid link
High-capacity archive
Photo: WD WD Ultrastar DC HC570 22TB
Backblaze’s lifetime failure rate for this exact model is 0.58% across 26.6 million drive-days; WD rates it 550 TB a year with a five-year warranty.
Check price at Amazon Why we picked it Paid link
Every pick at a glance
One bar per drive, colored by tier and in the order the tiers run below. Hover or focus a bar for its numbers; click it to jump to the drive’s card.
Show the numbers
| Drive | Backblaze model | Drives | Drive-days | Failures | Rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WD Ultrastar DC HC570 | WUH722222ALE6L4 | 45,665 | 26,618,389 | 423 | 0.58 |
| Toshiba MG10 | MG10ACA20TE | 25,270 | 9,324,427 | 202 | 0.79 |
| Toshiba MG11 | MG11ACA24TE | 9,620 | 1,694,377 | 23 | 0.50 |
The bar each tier sets
| Tier | 3.5-inch | CMR recording | 7200 rpm | Workload rating | Warranty | Capacity | Backblaze data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop and backup | Required | Required | Required | Not part of this tier’s bar | 3 years or more | Not part of this tier’s bar | Not part of this tier’s bar |
| NAS | Not part of this tier’s bar | Required | Required | 550 TB a year or more | 5 years | Not part of this tier’s bar | Not part of this tier’s bar |
| High-capacity archive | Not part of this tier’s bar | Required | Required | 550 TB a year | 5 years | 20 TB or more | A model in the lifetime table |
Internal hard drives
Internal hard drives · tier 1 of 3
Desktop and backup
3.5-inch CMR drives at 7200 rpm with a warranty of three years or more, for a PC or a backup box. Budget drives with two-year warranties are left off.
2 picks, best first
Best pick
Toshiba X300 Pro 12TB
Photo: Toshiba Tom’s Hardware names it the best high-end desktop drive: CMR at 7200 rpm, a 512 MiB cache, 300 TB a year and a five-year warranty.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 300 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- Not reported by Backblaze
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 300 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- Not stated Not stated
How it clears the bar
Toshiba X300 Pro: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind 3.5-inch Required 3.5-inch Maker sheet CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Warranty 3 years or more 5 years Maker sheet Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 512 MiB
- Sustained rate
- Not stated by Toshiba
- Case
- Helium
- Workload rating
- 300 TB a year
- Reliability
- 1,000,000 hours
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- HDWR51CUZSVB
Check price at Amazon Paid link2nd pick
WD_BLACK 3.5-inch 8TB
Photo: WD Tom’s Hardware calls it the best high-capacity desktop drive: CMR at 7200 rpm with a 256 MB cache and a five-year warranty.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- Not stated by the maker
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- Not reported by Backblaze
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- Not stated Not stated
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- Not stated Not stated
How it clears the bar
WD_BLACK 3.5-inch: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind 3.5-inch Required 3.5-inch Maker sheet CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Warranty 3 years or more 5 years Maker sheet Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 256 MB
- Sustained rate
- 267 MB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Not stated in the data sheet
- Workload rating
- Not stated by the maker
- Reliability
- No MTBF in the data sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- WD8002FZBX
Check price at Amazon Paid link
Internal hard drives · tier 2 of 3
NAS
CMR drives made for 24/7 use in multi-bay boxes: a workload rating of 550 TB a year and a five-year warranty.
3 picks, best first
Best pick
Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB
Photo: Seagate Tom’s Hardware picks it as the best NAS drive; Seagate rates it 550 TB a year and includes three years of data recovery.
Seagate also sells a 24 TB IronWolf Pro with heat-assisted recording (ST24000NT031, 240 MB/s). This card is the helium ST24000NT002 that the NASCompares review tested.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- Not reported by Backblaze
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- Not stated Not stated
How it clears the bar
Seagate IronWolf Pro: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year or more 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 512 MB
- Sustained rate
- 285 MB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- ST24000NT002
Check price at Amazon Paid link2nd pick
WD Red Pro 22TB
Photo: WD Tom’s Hardware lists it as its alternate NAS pick, with 512 MB of cache and OptiNAND flash; WD rates it 550 TB a year.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- Not reported by Backblaze
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- Not stated Not stated
How it clears the bar
WD Red Pro: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year or more 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 512 MB
- Sustained rate
- 265 MB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium, with OptiNAND flash on the drive
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours (the sheet’s table for this model; some other Red Pro models list 2,000,000)
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- WD221KFGX
Check price at Amazon Paid link3rd pick
Toshiba N300 Pro 24TB
Photo: Toshiba Toshiba rates the line for 550 TB a year with a five-year warranty, and Tom’s Hardware liked it at 12 to 18TB in its X300 Pro review; the 24 TB model has a 1 GiB buffer.
Toshiba’s table gives bulk and regional retail part numbers rather than one number, so the link searches by name. Smaller N300 Pro sizes are rated 300 TB a year; this card is the 24 TB model.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- Not reported by Backblaze
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- Not stated Not stated
How it clears the bar
Toshiba N300 Pro: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year or more 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 1 GiB
- Sustained rate
- 309 MB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- No single part number published
Check price at Amazon Paid link
Internal hard drives · tier 3 of 3
High-capacity archive
CMR drives of 20 TB and up with a five-year warranty and a model in Backblaze’s lifetime failure table.
3 picks, best first
Best pick
WD Ultrastar DC HC570 22TB
Photo: WD Backblaze’s lifetime failure rate for this exact model is 0.58% across 26.6 million drive-days; WD rates it 550 TB a year with a five-year warranty.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- 0.58% lifetime failure rate over 26.6 million drive-days
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- 0.58% lifetime failure rate over 26.6 million drive-days Fleet failure data
How it clears the bar
WD Ultrastar DC HC570: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Capacity 20 TB or more 22TB Maker sheet Backblaze data A model in the lifetime table WUH722222ALE6L4 is in the lifetime table Fleet failure data Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 512 MB
- Sustained rate
- 291 MB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium, 10 disks, with OptiNAND flash on the drive
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours (projected)
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- WUH722222ALE6L4
- Backblaze
- WUH722222ALE6L4: 423 failures in 26,618,389 drive-days, 45,665 drives
Check price at Amazon Paid link2nd pick
Toshiba MG10 20TB
Photo: Toshiba Backblaze’s lifetime failure rate for this model is 0.79% across 9.3 million drive-days; Toshiba rates it 550 TB a year with a five-year warranty.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- 0.79% lifetime failure rate over 9.3 million drive-days
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- 0.79% lifetime failure rate over 9.3 million drive-days Fleet failure data
How it clears the bar
Toshiba MG10: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Capacity 20 TB or more 20TB Maker sheet Backblaze data A model in the lifetime table MG10ACA20TE is in the lifetime table Fleet failure data Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 512 MiB
- Sustained rate
- 268 MiB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium, 10 disks
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- MG10ACA20TE
- Backblaze
- MG10ACA20TE: 202 failures in 9,324,427 drive-days, 25,270 drives
Check price at Amazon Paid link3rd pick
Toshiba MG11 24TB
Photo: Toshiba Backblaze’s lifetime rate is 0.50% but from a short record, 1.7 million drive-days; Toshiba rates it 550 TB a year with a 1 GiB buffer.
Backblaze has run this model for a short time, 1.7 million drive-days, so its failure rate is an early read.
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Backblaze failure rate
- 0.50% lifetime failure rate over 1.7 million drive-days
Where each fact comes from
- Recording
- CMR, 7200 rpm Maker sheet
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year Maker sheet
- Warranty
- 5 years Maker sheet
- Failure rate
- 0.50% lifetime failure rate over 1.7 million drive-days Fleet failure data
How it clears the bar
Toshiba MG11: each requirement of its tier and the drive’s own value Requirement The bar This drive Source kind CMR recording Required CMR Maker sheet 7200 rpm Required 7200 rpm Maker sheet Workload rating 550 TB a year 550 TB a year Maker sheet Warranty 5 years 5 years Maker sheet Capacity 20 TB or more 24TB Maker sheet Backblaze data A model in the lifetime table MG11ACA24TE is in the lifetime table Fleet failure data Full specs
- Interface
- SATA 6 Gb/s
- Recording
- CMR (conventional, not shingled), 7200 rpm
- Buffer
- 1 GiB
- Sustained rate
- 295 MiB/s at best, per the maker
- Case
- Helium, 10 disks
- Workload rating
- 550 TB a year
- Reliability
- 2,500,000 hours
- Warranty
- 5 years
- Form factor
- 3.5-inch
- Part number
- MG11ACA24TE
- Backblaze
- MG11ACA24TE: 23 failures in 1,694,377 drive-days, 9,620 drives
Check price at Amazon Paid link
All picks side by side
Every figure is the one on the drive’s card. Press a column heading to sort; press it again to reverse. A drive Backblaze does not run has no failure rate, so its cell says so.
Internal hard drive picks
Tap any column heading to sort the table by it. Tap it again to reverse the order.
| Tier and pick | Drive | Recording | Cache | Sustained rate | Workload rating (TB a year) | Warranty (years) | Backblaze failure rate | Launched |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop and backup · Best pick | Toshiba X300 Pro 12TB | CMR | 512 MiB | Not stated by Toshiba | 300 | 5 | Not run by Backblaze | By December 2023 |
| Desktop and backup · 2nd pick | WD_BLACK 3.5-inch 8TB | CMR | 256 MB | 267 MB/s | Not stated | 5 | Not run by Backblaze | July 2024 |
| NAS · Best pick | Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB | CMR | 512 MB | 285 MB/s | 550 | 5 | Not run by Backblaze | November 2023 |
| NAS · 2nd pick | WD Red Pro 22TB | CMR | 512 MB | 265 MB/s | 550 | 5 | Not run by Backblaze | January 2025 |
| NAS · 3rd pick | Toshiba N300 Pro 24TB | CMR | 1 GiB | 309 MB/s | 550 | 5 | Not run by Backblaze | April 2025 |
| High-capacity archive · Best pick | WD Ultrastar DC HC570 22TB | CMR | 512 MB | 291 MB/s | 550 | 5 | 0.58% | August 2022 |
| High-capacity archive · 2nd pick | Toshiba MG10 20TB | CMR | 512 MiB | 268 MiB/s | 550 | 5 | 0.79% | Announced October 2022 |
| High-capacity archive · 3rd pick | Toshiba MG11 24TB | CMR | 1 GiB | 295 MiB/s | 550 | 5 | 0.5% | September 2024 |
How we pick
A drive becomes a pick when it clears the bar for its tier, takes every spec we print from the maker’s own data sheet, and has at least one published review saved in our library. High-capacity drives, which reviewers cover least, can stand on a place in Backblaze’s lifetime failure table instead of a review. Among drives that clear the bar, the order follows the evidence: Backblaze’s failure rate and the size of the base behind it, then the reviews.
The bar for every tier is drawn at the top of this page, in the overview.
Budget desktop drives with two-year warranties are left off, including the plain Seagate BarraCuda, which Tom’s Hardware says is shingled below 16 TB, and the WD Blue. An older drive can still win its tier; when it launched more than three years before the check date, its card says so. Where a card gives a date taken from a data sheet instead of a launch announcement, it says that too.
Popularity plays no part: a drive is here because of its data sheet, its failure data and its reviews, not because it sells well. We check the picks again when new reviews or a new Backblaze report come out.
Reading the cards
CMR means conventional magnetic recording: the tracks sit side by side, so any one can be rewritten alone. Shingled recording (SMR) overlaps the tracks to fit more data, and rewriting the middle of a band can force the drive to rewrite the rest of it, which makes sustained writes and RAID rebuilds slow and unpredictable. Every pick here is CMR.
The workload rating is the most data per year the maker says the drive is built to move, reads and writes together, and the warranty may depend on staying under it. The meter fills against the highest rating on this page. Where a data sheet states none, the card says so.
Backblaze’s drive stats come from the drives in its own data centers, which are almost all enterprise models, so desktop and NAS lines mostly show “Not reported”. A model appears in the lifetime table only with more than 500 drives and more than 100,000 drive-days; a rate on a small base is an early read, and the card says so. Failure rates in a data center are not a promise for your drive at home.
Where a review quotes a different workload rating or cache than the data sheet, the card follows the data sheet. This page does not show prices, because a page built once cannot keep a price current. For why storage prices are moving, read The Memory Cycle.
Also considered
Products the reviews we read tested that did not make the cut, and the reason each one missed.
Desktop and backup
- Seagate BarraCuda 24TB. Tom’s Hardware lists it as CMR at 7200 rpm, but with a two-year warranty, short of the three years this tier asks for, and its lower capacities use SMR. Tom’s Hardware, Best Hard Drives 2026 (updated October 26, 2026)
- WD Blue 10TB and 12TB. Tom’s Hardware lists these as CMR at 7200 rpm with a 512MB cache, but backed by a two-year warranty, which falls under this tier’s bar. Tom’s Hardware, Best Hard Drives 2026 (updated October 26, 2026)
NAS
- WD Red Plus 12TB. Tom’s Hardware rates it a good lower-capacity NAS drive, but it has a three-year warranty and a 180TB workload rating, under this tier’s five years and 550 TB a year. Tom’s Hardware, Best Hard Drives 2026 (updated October 26, 2026)
High-capacity archive
- Seagate Exos M 30TB. Tom’s Hardware tested it as CMR at 7200 rpm with a 550 TB a year rating and a five-year warranty, but Backblaze’s lifetime table has no row for it, so it misses this tier’s failure-data bar. Tom’s Hardware, Best Hard Drives 2026 (updated October 26, 2026)
- Seagate Exos X20. Tom’s Hardware lists it as CMR with 550 TB a year and a five-year warranty, but calls it older technology with less cache, and Backblaze’s lifetime table has no 20TB Seagate row. Tom’s Hardware, Best Hard Drives 2026 (updated October 26, 2026)
- Seagate ST24000NM002H (24TB). Backblaze’s lifetime table shows it at a 3.24% annualized failure rate over 3.6 million drive-days, well above the rows for the picks here. Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2026
Questions before you buy
What is the difference between CMR and SMR?
A CMR drive writes its tracks side by side, so a rewrite touches only that track. An SMR drive overlaps tracks like roof shingles, so changing data in the middle can force the drive to rewrite a whole band, and writes slow down and turn uneven. Every pick on this page is CMR. How a hard drive works.
Do I need a NAS drive, or will a desktop drive do?
NAS drives are made for 24/7 use in multi-bay boxes, and the NAS picks here carry a 550 TB a year workload rating and a five-year warranty. A desktop drive is fine for one PC or a backup that runs now and then. Running a NAS.
What does a workload rating mean?
It is the maker’s figure for how much data the drive is meant to read and write in a year. The NAS and archive tiers here ask for 550 TB a year, and a lower rating, like the 300 TB on the Toshiba X300 Pro, marks a drive meant for lighter use.
Does helium matter?
Helium is thinner than air, so the platters spin with less drag and the drive draws less power. It is a sign of a modern high-capacity design, but it does not replace checking the recording type, workload rating and warranty. Why drives are sealed with helium.
What does Backblaze failure data tell me?
Backblaze publishes failure rates for the drives it runs in its own data centers. A low rate over millions of drive-days, like the lifetime rows for the archive picks, is useful evidence, but it describes one fleet’s use and not a promise for your drive. A short record, like the Toshiba MG11’s, is an early read.
Should I back up to a hard drive or an SSD?
A hard drive holds the most data per drive, so it suits large backups that rarely change. An SSD is faster and has no moving parts, which helps for a small, frequently used backup. Best SSDs.