--- title: I'm buying an 8TB external HDD instead of an 8TB... description: A personal account of choosing an 8TB external HDD over an equivalent SSD for archival/cold storage. Key reasons include the significant price difference... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-buying-an-8tb-external-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-external-ssd-and-the-price-is-just-one-reason-why-pndb1oirw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I'm buying an 8TB external HDD instead of an 8TB external SSD, and the price is just one reason why | daily.dev og:description: A personal account of choosing an 8TB external HDD over an equivalent SSD for archival/cold storage. Key reasons include the significant price difference... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-buying-an-8tb-external-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-external-ssd-and-the-price-is-just-one-reason-why-pndb1oirw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pNDB1OIRw.png og:image:alt: I'm buying an 8TB external HDD instead of an 8TB external SSD, and the price is just one reason why og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I'm buying an 8TB external HDD instead of an 8TB external SSD, and the price is just one reason why **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 5 min read · 62 upvotes · 19 comments ## Summary A personal account of choosing an 8TB external HDD over an equivalent SSD for archival/cold storage. Key reasons include the significant price difference (~$700 cheaper), the fact that high transfer speeds are wasted on a rarely accessed backup drive, and the critical data retention advantage of HDDs over SSDs when left unpowered for extended periods. SSDs can lose data if unpowered for 12–24 months, making them unsuitable for long-term cold storage, while HDDs retain data reliably over years without power. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why would an SSD be a bad choice for long-term cold storage compared to an HDD? An SSD can lose data if left unpowered for 12 to 24 months because flash storage loses voltage over time without power, risking data integrity even if the drive still functions. Hard drives retain data reliably for years without power, though they remain susceptible to physical wear and mechanical failure, making HDDs the more dependable choice for archival backups accessed only a few times a year. _daily.dev surfaces storage reliability comparisons for anyone weighing HDD versus SSD for backups._ ### How much faster is an external SSD than an external HDD in real-world transfer speeds? An external SSD delivers roughly 700–900 MB/s write speeds, about 5–6 times faster than an external HDD, which is limited to USB 3.0 speeds of 120–150 MB/s. For infrequent archival transfers rather than performance-sensitive work like gaming or productivity, this speed gap rarely matters in daily use. _developers and power users comparing storage speed tradeoffs can track these benchmarks via daily.dev._ ### Is it cheaper to buy an internal or external 8TB hard drive? An internal 8TB HDD costs around $200, while an equivalent external HDD costs about $100 more, making internal drives the cheaper option by price alone. External drives are still preferred when portability between multiple systems, such as a PC and a separate iMac, is required despite the added cost. _daily.dev helps buyers weigh storage cost tradeoffs before making an internal versus external drive decision._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@soapbravo** · 22 upvotes > That is very realistic decision to make. > > Yet, HDDs also `forget` data slowly, like 1 or 2 bits every few months in real world. **@pwitham** · 15 upvotes > Makes perfect sense to me, the argument of backups not needing super fast read/write speeds alone is worth the price saving. **@bits\_and\_bytes** · 10 upvotes > I thought about buying an SSD. Thanks for saving my penny! **@elmarchavez** · 7 upvotes > So that's the reason why my TOSHIBA 2TB HDD is still alive after so many years of not moving files. Also I didn't know SSD's could degrade data integrity when not in use, thanks for this info. Learning more every day! **@lancelotoleriana** · 3 upvotes > The price gap is the most compelling argument here. With the $700 saved by opting for an HDD over an SSD, you could easily purchase two or three additional 8TB HDDs. This allows you to implement a proper 3-2-1 backup strategy (multiple copies in different locations) rather than relying on a single, expensive SSD. For cold storage, redundancy is always safer than speed. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why I bought a 16TB HDD instead of an 8TB SSD](https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-bought-a-16tb-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-ssd-ki5vmixwy) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [6 reasons I'm buying HDDs, not SSDs](https://daily.dev/posts/6-reasons-i-m-buying-hdds-not-ssds-xu3uvz8if) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Terabyte Deals \(US\)](https://daily.dev/posts/terabyte-deals-us--nkabi8llc) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [With Affordable Storage Options Dwindling, Where To Store Our Data?](https://daily.dev/posts/with-affordable-storage-options-dwindling-where-to-store-our-data--mhkd6gosc) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#storage](https://daily.dev/tags/storage) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-buying-an-8tb-external-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-external-ssd-and-the-price-is-just-one-reason-why-pndb1oirw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I'm buying an 8TB external HDD instead of an 8TB external SSD, and the price is just one reason why","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-buying-an-8tb-external-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-external-ssd-and-the-price-is-just-one-reason-why-pndb1oirw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-buying-an-8tb-external-hdd-instead-of-an-8tb-external-ssd-and-the-price-is-just-one-reason-why-pndb1oirw"},"datePublished":"2026-07-09T11:01:45.547Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:52:56.910Z","description":"A personal account of choosing an 8TB external HDD over an equivalent SSD for archival/cold storage. 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Thanks for saving my penny!","datePublished":"2026-07-10T03:09:04.397Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/pNDB1OIRw#c-FwD8dZHqH","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"bits_007","url":"https://daily.dev/bits_and_bytes","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/182549945?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":10}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"So that’s the reason why my TOSHIBA 2TB HDD is still alive after so many years of not moving files. Also I didn’t know SSD’s could degrade data integrity when not in use, thanks for this info. Learning more every day!","datePublished":"2026-07-10T08:46:41.766Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/pNDB1OIRw#c-9gKMN0EAr","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":7}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The price gap is the most compelling argument here. With the $700 saved by opting for an HDD over an SSD, you could easily purchase two or three additional 8TB HDDs. This allows you to implement a proper 3-2-1 backup strategy (multiple copies in different locations) rather than relying on a single, expensive SSD. 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Hard drives retain data reliably for years without power, though they remain susceptible to physical wear and mechanical failure, making HDDs the more dependable choice for archival backups accessed only a few times a year. daily.dev surfaces storage reliability comparisons for anyone weighing HDD versus SSD for backups."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How much faster is an external SSD than an external HDD in real-world transfer speeds?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"An external SSD delivers roughly 700–900 MB/s write speeds, about 5–6 times faster than an external HDD, which is limited to USB 3.0 speeds of 120–150 MB/s. 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