Tested: Refurbished 1TB Hard Drives in 2026 (the only still-affordable storage …)

It seems like recent AI boom is having some jitters, which is perhaps not the worst thing in the world. After all, I’m a value-conscious buyer and the AI boom has essentially priced me out of DRAM, SSDs and even hard drives. Some users are even going back to optical media – I myself have burned upwards of 700 discs this year alone. I remember the days when hard drives were “cheap” – my personal-best record is still a brand-new 18TB Seagate IronWolf Pro for AU$271.58 in 2023 for a record-price of $15.09/TB. Nowadays, OzBargain listings for new hard drives range from $36/TB to $69/TB but most of the ones you can actually buy are often $50/TB or so. For those looking at BDXL TL BD-R optical discs, the effective rate is about $65/TB, making it even more expensive although some do have confidence in its write-once nature, but I feel the technology might be a bit too “on the cutting edge” and not quite mainstream-enough to ensure easy access in the future. The time requirement for writing…