There are number of new interesting storage alternatives on the market these days, and more are set to arrive throughout 2016. The large 8 TB SMR Seagate drives, both internal and external, top the list as most affordable per byte. They are followed by various traditional 3 and 4 TB drives. At the bottom amongst the HDD, we find the helium filled HGST drives. A 10 TB SMR version is expected to reach the market soon.

In SSD land, the picture is reversed, where it is the largest drives which gives you most capacity per coin, at continuously decreasing prices. Added to the mix, is the new NVM-M.2 motherboard socket standard, which attaches directly to the PCI bus. This gives vastly improved performance, at up to 5x read/write speeds of the traditional SATA3 connection.

Finally, amongst flash card and stick storage, there is similar prices decrease as SSD, and also increase in max size. The biggest SD cards are now at 512 GB.

Media Type Product Capacity Price CHF Price Euros Euros / GB GBs / Euro
HDD-SMR Seagate ARCHIVE HDD 8TB 8000 GB 238.00 216.36 0.03 36.97
SMR External 3.5 Seagate Backup Plus Desktop 8TB 8000 GB 274.00 249.09 0.03 32.12
HDD Seagate Desktop 4TB 4000 GB 139.00 126.36 0.03 31.65
HDD Western Digital Green 4TB 4000 GB 144.00 130.91 0.03 30.56
HDD Western Digital Green 3TB 3000 GB 110.00 100.00 0.03 30.00
External 3.5 Western Digital Elements Desktop 4TB, USB3 4000 GB 149.00 135.45 0.03 29.53
External 3.5 Western Digital My Book 4TB, USB3 4000 GB 154.00 140.00 0.04 28.57
External 3.5 Western Digital Elements Desktop 3TB, USB3 3000 GB 123.00 111.82 0.04 26.83
External 3.5 Western Digital My Book 6TB, USB3 6000 GB 248.00 225.45 0.04 26.61
HDD Western Digital Red 3TB 3000 GB 125.00 113.64 0.04 26.40
HDD Western Digital Green 2TB 2000 GB 83.60 76.00 0.04 26.32
HDD Western Digital Green 6TB 6000 GB 253.00 230.00 0.04 26.09
External 3.5 Western Digital My Book 3TB, USB3 3000 GB 130.00 118.18 0.04 25.38
HDD Western Digital Red 5TB 5000 GB 229.00 208.18 0.04 24.02
HDD Western Digital Red 6TB 6000 GB 275.00 250.00 0.04 24.00
HDD Western Digital Red 4TB 4000 GB 184.00 167.27 0.04 23.91
External 2.5 Western Digital Elements Portable 2TB, USB3 2000 GB 98.40 89.45 0.04 22.36
HDD Western Digital Red 2TB 2000 GB 103.00 93.64 0.05 21.36
External 2.5 Western Digital My Passport Ultra 3TB, USB3 3000 GB 155.00 140.91 0.05 21.29
External 2.5 Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB, USB3 2000 GB 111.00 100.91 0.05 19.82
External 2.5 Western Digital Elements Portable 1TB, USB3 1000 GB 68.20 62.00 0.06 16.13
External 2.5 Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1TB, USB3 1000 GB 73.20 66.55 0.07 15.03
HDD-He Hitachi Ultrastar He6 6TB 6000 GB 441.00 400.91 0.07 14.97
Blu-ray Verbatim BD-R SL 10 @ 25GB 250 GB 23.70 21.55 0.09 11.60
DVD-R Verbatim 16x DVD-R 100 @ 4,7GB 470 GB 46.00 41.82 0.09 11.24
Blu-ray Verbatim BD-R DL 10 @ 50GB 500 GB 50.00 45.45 0.09 11.00
HDD-He Hitachi Ultrastar He8 8TB 8000 GB 875.00 795.45 0.10 10.06
DVD+R DL Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL 50 @ 8,5GB 425 GB 73.30 66.64 0.16 6.38
DVD+R DL Verbatim 8x DVD+R DL 25 @ 8,5GB 213 GB 39.00 35.45 0.17 5.99
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO Basic, TLC, 1TB 1000 GB 336.00 305.45 0.31 3.27
SSD Crucial BX100 SSD, MLC, 500GB 500 GB 169.00 153.64 0.31 3.25
SSD Crucial MX200 SSD, MLC, 1000GB 1000 GB 344.00 312.73 0.31 3.20
SSD Crucial BX200 SSD, MLC, 480GB 480 GB 168.00 152.73 0.32 3.14
SSD Crucial BX100 SSD, MLC, 250GB 250 GB 88.00 80.00 0.32 3.13
SSD Crucial BX100 SSD, MLC, 1000GB 1000 GB 352.00 320.00 0.32 3.13
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO Basic, TLC, 500GB 500 GB 177.00 160.91 0.32 3.11
SSD Crucial MX200 SSD, MLC, 500GB 500 GB 182.00 165.45 0.33 3.02
USB Flash SanDisk Ultra, USB 3.0, 256GB 256 GB 96.90 88.09 0.34 2.91
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO Basic, TLC, 250GB 250 GB 97.20 88.36 0.35 2.83
SSD Crucial BX200 SSD, MLC, 240GB 240 GB 98.10 89.18 0.37 2.69
SSD Crucial MX200 SSD, MLC, 250GB 250 GB 110.00 100.00 0.40 2.50
SSD Samsung SSD 850 Pro, MLC, 1024GB 1024 GB 469.00 426.36 0.42 2.40
USB Flash SanDisk Cruzer Edge Flash Drive 64GB 64 GB 29.80 27.09 0.42 2.36
SSD Samsung SSD 850 Pro, MLC, 512GB 512 GB 247.00 224.55 0.44 2.28
CD-R Verbatim CD-R 100 @ 700MB 70 GB 34.90 31.73 0.45 2.21
SSD Samsung SSD 850 Pro, MLC, 256GB 256 GB 140.00 127.27 0.50 2.01
USB Flash SanDisk Cruzer Edge Flash Drive 32GB 32 GB 18.70 17.00 0.53 1.88
SSD Samsung SSD 850 EVO Basic, TLC, 120GB 120 GB 73.60 66.91 0.56 1.79
SDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 3, 95/90MB/s, 256GB 256 GB 161.00 146.36 0.57 1.75
SSD-NVM-M.2 Samsung SSD 950 Pro, M.2 2280, MLC, 2500/1500MB/s, 512GB 512 GB 345.00 313.64 0.61 1.63
SDXC SanDisk Extreme SDXC, Class 10/UHS 3, 40/60MB/s, 128GB 128 GB 93.40 84.91 0.66 1.51
SDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 3, 95/90MB/s, 128GB 128 GB 94.00 85.45 0.67 1.50
SSD Samsung SSD 850 Pro, MLC, 128GB 128 GB 97.30 88.45 0.69 1.45
SSD-NVM-M.2 Samsung SSD 950 Pro, M.2 2280, MLC, 2200/900MB/s, 256GB 256 GB 199.00 180.91 0.71 1.42
USB Flash SanDisk Cruzer Edge Flash Drive 16GB 16 GB 12.90 11.73 0.73 1.36
SDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 3, 95/90MB/s, 512GB 512 GB 419.00 380.91 0.74 1.34
microSDXC SanDisk Ultra Premium microSDXC 90MB/s, 200GB 200 GB 168.00 152.73 0.76 1.31
microSDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDXC, Class 10, 90/95MB/s, 64GB 64 GB 57.60 52.36 0.82 1.22
SDHC SanDisk Extreme SDHC, Class 10/UHS 3, 40/60MB/s, 32GB 32 GB 29.00 26.36 0.82 1.21
microSDHC SanDisk Ultra microSDHC Android, Class 10, 48MB/s, 32GB 32 GB 30.60 27.82 0.87 1.15
SDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 1, 95/90MB/s, 64GB 64 GB 62.00 56.36 0.88 1.14
SDHC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 1, 95/90MB/s, 32GB 32 GB 38.10 34.64 1.08 0.92
USB Flash SanDisk Cruzer Edge Flash Drive 8GB 8 GB 10.00 9.09 1.14 0.88
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s, UDMA 7, 256GB 256 GB 342.00 310.91 1.21 0.82
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s, UDMA 7, 128GB 128 GB 187.00 170.00 1.33 0.75
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s, UDMA 7, 64GB 64 GB 98.50 89.55 1.40 0.71
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme 120MB/s, UDMA 7, 32GB 32 GB 52.00 47.27 1.48 0.68
SDXC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-II, UHS 3, 280/250MB/s, 64GB 64 GB 114.00 103.64 1.62 0.62
SDHC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I, Class 10/UHS 1, 95/90MB/s, 16GB 16 GB 30.70 27.91 1.74 0.57
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme 120MB/s, UDMA 7, 64GB 64 GB 127.00 115.45 1.80 0.55
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme Pro 160MB/s, UDMA 7, 32GB 32 GB 64.00 58.18 1.82 0.55
SDHC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-II, UHS 3, 280/250MB/s, 32GB 32 GB 76.20 69.27 2.16 0.46
Compact Flash SanDisk Extreme 120MB/s, UDMA 7, 16GB 16 GB 43.00 39.09 2.44 0.41
SDHC SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-II, UHS 3, 280/250MB/s, 16GB 16 GB 50.10 45.55 2.85 0.35

Exchange rate: 1 Euro = 1.100000 CHF.