The best 8TB NAS drives include the WD Red Plus, Seagate IronWolf, and Toshiba N300. All feature CMR technology, 24/7 reliability ratings, and vibration sensors for multi-bay NAS systems. For home NAS use, choose whichever offers the best current price. For business or heavy workloads, consider the WD Red Pro or Seagate IronWolf Pro with higher performance and longer warranties.

8TB is a great starting point for most home servers. It can hold approximately 1,600+ hours of HD video, 2 million photos, or hundreds of games. For a Plex server, 8TB handles a substantial movie collection. However, if you're a serious data hoarder or plan to store 4K content, consider starting with 12TB or 16TB drives, or use multiple 8TB drives in RAID for both capacity and redundancy.

For 8TB HDDs, a good price is $12-18 per TB ($96-144 total). NAS drives like WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf typically run $15-20/TB. Enterprise drives and refurbished units can drop below $12/TB. For 8TB SSDs, expect $50-80 per TB ($400-640 total) with the Samsung 870 QVO often offering the best value. Check our table above for current pricing.

It depends on your needs. One 8TB drive: simpler setup, often better $/TB, uses only one drive bay/port. Two 4TB drives: can configure RAID 1 for redundancy (though you'd only get 4TB usable), or RAID 0 for speed. For most users, a single 8TB drive is more practical. If data protection is critical, pair the 8TB drive with a good backup solution rather than relying on multiple drives.

The Samsung 870 QVO 8TB is the most popular 8TB SATA SSD, offering good reliability and the best $/TB for high-capacity SSDs. For NVMe, options are more limited at 8TB, but the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB and Seagate FireCuda 530 4TB x2 (if you have two slots) are options. At 8TB capacity, SATA SSDs often make more sense due to lower cost—the speed difference matters less for bulk storage.

Yes, 8TB drives from major manufacturers are very reliable. This capacity has been available for years, so the technology is mature. According to Backblaze data, 8TB drives from Seagate, WD, and Toshiba show strong reliability. For maximum reliability, choose NAS-rated drives (IronWolf, Red Plus, N300) or enterprise drives (Exos, Ultrastar) which have higher build quality and longer warranties.

Yes! An 8TB HDD is great for storing your game library—modern games can be 100GB+, so 8TB holds 50-80 large games. For fastest load times, use an SSD for your most-played games and the 8TB HDD for your extended library. The WD Black or Seagate Barracuda are good choices for gaming HDDs. For an all-SSD setup, the 8TB Samsung 870 QVO works well for game storage.

Generally, 12TB-16TB drives offer the best $/TB due to economies of scale. 8TB drives are slightly less efficient on price but more affordable upfront. The sweet spot shifts based on current pricing—check our comparison tables. If budget allows, 12TB or 16TB often makes more sense long-term. However, 8TB is perfect if you need multiple drives (RAID) or have budget constraints.