I compiled a list of the 167 best hard drives and this is what I learned about the modern HDD market

• Hard drives still matter where capacity, cost efficiency and durability outweigh raw speed
• Most modern hard drives are built for data centers, servers and specialized storage roles
• Consumer hard drives are now rare, while enterprise, NAS and video drives dominate

Hard disk drives are often written off as legacy tech, but a closer look at what is still on sale tells a different story.

After compiling a detailed list of 167 of the best hard disk drives worth buying, six clear points emerged about who is still making HDDs, what they’re building, and who they’re actually for.