Hard drives

25 products from $65 Pay in BTC, ETH or USDT

Internal 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch hard drives from Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba for NAS, desktop and enterprise use. Filter by capacity, size and speed, and pay in BTC, ETH or USDT.

6 products

6 products

Products

Buying hard drives at HodlChip

Hard drives still give the lowest cost per terabyte, which makes them the choice for archives, backups, media libraries and NAS. Choose by what the drive is designed for:

  • NAS drives: built for 24/7 operation in multi-bay enclosures, with vibration tolerance and firmware tuned for RAID.
  • Desktop drives: secondary storage in a single PC; not intended for RAID or constant operation.
  • Enterprise drives: high capacities and workload ratings for servers and large NAS units.

For RAID and NAS use, choose drives with CMR recording rather than SMR, which can slow badly during rebuilds; manufacturers list the recording technology in their specifications. 7,200 rpm drives are faster but louder and warmer than 5,400 to 5,900 rpm models, which suit quiet home NAS units.

Use the same model and capacity across an array, and consider a spare drive for quick replacement. RAID is not a backup, so keep a copy on an external drive or off-site. For external use, fit a drive in a 3.5-inch enclosure, and keep your operating system on an NVMe SSD.

Questions about hard drives

Can I use desktop hard drives in a NAS?
It is possible but not recommended. NAS drives are designed for 24/7 operation, vibration from neighboring drives and RAID error handling; desktop drives may drop out of an array or wear faster in that role.
What is the difference between CMR and SMR?
They are recording methods. CMR writes tracks side by side and keeps write speeds steady; SMR overlaps tracks for higher density but can slow down sharply during sustained writes and RAID rebuilds. Choose CMR for NAS and RAID.
Do I need a 7,200 rpm drive?
Only if you need the extra speed for large, frequent transfers. 5,400 to 5,900 rpm drives run quieter and cooler, which suits home NAS units and backups, where the network is often the bottleneck anyway.