What's the Cheapest Way to Store 100TB?
Published: July 18, 2026
Pulling live prices…
📊 As of July 25, 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages $29.37/TB vs $34.94/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.com — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 16% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of July 25, 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages $26.5/TB vs $25.56/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on eBay.com — used SAS HDD (14TB+) is about the same per TB.
📊 As of 25 July 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages £27.5/TB vs £23.86/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.co.uk — used SAS HDD (14TB+) is about 13% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25. Juli 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 27,49 €/TB vs 41,77 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.de — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 34% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25. Juli 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 54,74 €/TB vs 18,81 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on eBay.de — used SAS HDD (14TB+) is about 66% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25 July 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages $48.44/TB vs $60/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on eBay.com.au — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 19% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25 juillet 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 35 €/TB vs 40,17 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.fr — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 13% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25 de julio de 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 32,15 €/TB vs 30,56 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.es — used SAS HDD (14TB+) is about the same per TB.
📊 As of July 25, 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages $45.27/TB vs $52.5/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.ca — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 14% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 25 juli 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages € 27,5/TB vs € 50,61/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.nl — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about half the price per TB.
📊 As of 25 luglio 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 31,61 €/TB vs 39,85 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on Amazon.it — used SATA HDD (14TB+) is about 21% cheaper per TB.
📊 As of 24 luglio 2026, used SATA HDD (14TB+) averages 47,29 €/TB vs 41,68 €/TB for used SAS HDD (14TB+) on eBay.it — used SAS HDD (14TB+) is about 12% cheaper per TB.
Sourced from real discussions on r/DataHoarder and r/homelab, cross-checked against live PricePerGig listings.
The fastest path to 100TB with least effort is picking the largest drives you can find at the best price per TB rate you’re willing to pay for; to reduce the cost, build with used/refurbished enterprise drives and you’ll be able to download your own Internet in no time. At first, like me, you may think having all those older 2TB, 4, even 6TB drives laying around can finally be put to some use and max up your storage. Well, you can do that, but after factoring in the extra hardware needed (that’s a lot of SATA or SAS ports!) and the conservative 10 watts power draw per drive, it soon becomes apparent that fewer, larger drives are the way to go.
The table above compares live prices for used SATA and SAS drives of 14TB and up on your marketplace, which is literally the number you multiply up to price this out.
The maths of 100TB
Let me show you how cheap this really is.
Take the best price per TB on the live table above. Multiply by 100. That is your rough raw cost for 100TB.
Then add a drive or two for redundancy so a failure does not wipe you out.
That is it. The price per TB does all the work, which is exactly why chasing the lowest one matters so much at this scale. A few units saved per TB becomes hundreds saved across 100TB.
Big drives, few of them
At 100TB, drive choice is everything.
Buy big. The largest capacities almost always have the best price per TB, and fewer drives means less power, less heat, less noise, and fewer things that can fail.
Picture the two ways to hit 100TB. A wall of small drives, each with its own motor sipping power and adding failure points. Or a handful of big drives sitting quietly.
The big drive route is cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, and simpler to live with. It wins every way.
Refurbished is the secret weapon
Here is how the serious hoarders get to 100TB for less.
Recertified enterprise drives. Big capacities, enterprise build, at a fraction of new prices.
Buy from a reputable seller with a warranty, check the SMART data on arrival, and you can slash the cost per TB dramatically. For mass storage where you run redundancy anyway, refurbished drives are a brilliant bet.
Many of these recertified enterprise drives come with a SAS connector rather than the SATA you know from desktop drives. SAS often carries the best used price per TB, which is exactly what the comparison above measures, but it needs a SAS-capable controller or backplane. Decide which connector you are building around before you buy the first drive.
That single move can take a big chunk off your 100TB bill.
Do not buy SSDs for this
Quickly, because someone always asks.
SSDs cost several times more per TB than hard drives. Using them for 100TB of bulk storage would be financial madness for speed your media and backups will never use.
Hard drives for the bulk. Maybe one small SSD for cache or the operating system. That is all.
The bottom line
The cheapest way to store 100TB is a handful of big hard drives at the best price per TB, ideally recertified enterprise units, in a DIY NAS with redundancy and an offsite backup for the irreplaceable parts.
Check the live price per TB above, multiply by 100, and you have your number. Buy big, buy refurbished where you can, skip the SSDs, and 100TB stops being a fantasy and becomes a sensible weekend project.
Take a look at the largest used drives on offer, also you should look at SAS vs SATA, choosing the right connector now will save you big time as you expand.
