Which hard drive do I need?
Answer three questions. You get the type of drive that fits your use and the three cheapest Amazon offers per TB at your size.
How the drive picker works
Should I get a hard drive or an SSD?
Get a hard drive when you need a lot of space for little money, such as backups, photos, video, or a NAS. Get an SSD when speed matters, such as for games, apps, or files you carry in a bag. Hard drives cost much less per TB, and SSDs are many times faster.
How much space do I need?
Add up the files you want to keep, then add room to grow. For a backup, pick at least the size of the disk you back up. For a NAS, pick the size of each drive, not the total of the array.
How does the picker choose drives?
It keeps only the drive type that fits your use, at your size up to double it, in the condition you chose. It then ranks today's Amazon offers by price per TB and shows the three cheapest. If fewer than three fit near your size, it adds bigger drives and says so.
Is a renewed or used drive safe to buy?
It can be, for a backup copy or a NAS with spare redundancy. Check the warranty and the seller before buying. For the only copy of your files, buy new.
Saw a price somewhere else? Check it with the price per TB calculator →