eRacks Systems Tech Blog
Open Source Experts Since 1999
From 144TB to 2.6PB: The 2026 Storage Market and Why On-Premise NAS Is Back
The data storage market in 2026 is doing something unusual: it’s both growing fast and getting cheaper per terabyte at the same time. Global storage requirements are projected to nearly double by 2029, hitting roughly 20,000 exabytes. The NAS hardware market alone is forecast to grow from $55B today to $173B+ by 2034 – a 15.5% CAGR. And while all that’s happening, 30TB+ enterprise SATA drives have become genuinely mainstream, with retail prices that put petabyte-scale on-premise storage within reach of mid-sized organizations for the first time.
Meanwhile, the cloud-storage decade is hitting a wall. Egress fees on AWS, Azure and GCP have only gone up. Ransomware losses keep climbing. Healthcare, legal, finance, and government buyers are all asking the same question they used to leave for the IT department: where, exactly, is our data? The answer “somewhere in us-east-1” doesn’t satisfy a HIPAA auditor, a SOC 2 attestation, or a court order anymore.
The on-premise comeback is a hardware story
For years, the argument against running storage in your own rack was capex vs opex – “cloud is cheaper because you don’t buy hardware.” That math has flipped for any organization storing more than a few hundred TB. A 36-bay NAS loaded with 24TB drives gives you nearly a petabyte of raw storage for the price of about 8-10 months of equivalent S3 storage at production-tier rates – and the hardware keeps working for 5-7 years after that.
Three things made it flip:
- HDD prices at historic lows. 28TB and 30TB enterprise drives now sell for under $20/TB. A decade ago, that was 2TB-drive territory.
- ZFS and modern Linux file systems matured. ZFS in particular – with built-in checksumming, snapshots, replication, and dedup – has become the default storage layer for serious on-premise deployments. No vendor lock-in, no licensing tax.
- Cloud egress is the new vendor lock. Pulling 100TB out of S3 to migrate workloads costs more than the hardware that would store it locally for 5 years.
The eRacks NAS lineup
Our rackmount NAS line covers everything from a small workgroup file server to true petabyte-scale storage chassis. All ship with real Ubuntu Linux (your choice of file system – ZFS, XFS, or Btrfs), enterprise components (ECC RAM, redundant power supplies, hot-swap bays), and zero proprietary management software. The OS is yours, the data is yours, the hardware is yours.
| Model | Form | Bays | Max Raw | Starting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NAS4 | 1U | 4 | 144TB | $1,895 |
| NAS6 | 2U | 6 | 180TB | $2,795 |
| NAS8 | 2U | 8 | 240TB+ | $3,695 |
| NAS12 | 2U | 12 | 360TB | $4,695 |
| NAS16 | 3U | 16+2 | 288TB | $6,595 |
| NAS24 | 4U | 24 | 720TB | $8,995 |
| NAS36 | 4U | 36 | ~1PB | $10,495 |
| NAS50 | 9U | 50 | 1.3PB | $13,595 |
| NAS60 | 4U | 60 | ~2PB | $15,995 |
| NAS72 | 4U | 72 | 1.5PB+ | $19,995 |
| NAS100 | 4U | 102 | 2.6PB | $24,995 |
Starting prices are barebones (chassis, motherboard, PSU); add drives, RAM, OS choice at configuration. Custom builds welcome.
What you actually run on it
Because we don’t ship a proprietary OS, you get to pick the storage stack that matches your workload. Common combinations our customers deploy:
- File systems: ZFS (default for most deployments), XFS, Btrfs
- NAS / file sharing: TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, Samba, NFS, iSCSI
- Distributed storage: Ceph, BeeGFS, MooseFS, LizardFS – for multi-node clusters and HPC workloads
- Object storage: MinIO (S3-compatible) – increasingly popular as a local target for AI/ML training datasets
- Private cloud: NextCloud, Seafile, OwnCloud, Proxmox VE, CloudStack
- Backup & sync: Bacula, BorgBackup, restic, rsync, Duplicati
Pre-installed and tested before shipping, or shipped bare for you to provision however you like – your call at order time.
Who’s actually buying these in 2026
Six segments dominate our NAS pipeline this year:
- SMBs and mid-market IT trying to escape per-GB cloud bills that have crept past the cost of hardware ownership
- Media and production companies with growing 4K/8K video libraries (one production house can fill a 720TB NAS24 in a year)
- Healthcare and medical practices with HIPAA and patient-data sovereignty requirements that rule out major cloud providers
- Legal firms archiving case files, depositions, and discovery materials that simply cannot leave the building
- AI/ML teams needing local high-speed datasets for training – typically pairing a NAS24 or NAS36 with our AI server line for the GPU compute side
- MSPs and IT consultancies building private cloud infrastructure for clients who want SaaS economics without surrendering data ownership
What we don’t do
We don’t build consumer NAS appliances. There’s no fancy iOS app to manage your photos. We don’t license a proprietary OS or lock you into a vendor ecosystem. If you want a four-bay desktop box with a slick web UI for your home media collection, we’re not your shop – and that’s fine, lots of good vendors serve that market.
What we do build: enterprise rackmount storage on standard Linux, configurable to your exact spec, that you fully own and can replace any component on. The same approach we’ve taken since 1999.
Get the configuration right
Drive count, RAID level, networking (10/25/100GbE), RAM (1GB per TB is the rule of thumb for ZFS), and OS choice all matter. Reply to this post or hit our contact page with rough requirements and we’ll spec it for you – usually same day.
joe April 8th, 2026
Posted In: Backups, Linux, Open Source, Rackmount Servers, servers, Storage
Tags: backup, ceph, Cloud Storage Server, eRacks, eRacks signature service, eRacks/NAS24, eRacks/NAS36, eRacks/NAS50, MooseFS, NAS, NAS24, NAS36, NAS50, NAS72, Privacy, Rackmount, sata
eRacks NAS36 Servers Store More Data At Lower Cost
eRacks Systems NAS36 8TB Seagate Archive Drive upgrade
We can’t help it with our innovations. Our NAS36 servers offered almost 200 Terabytes of data space already. That is considered quite high for a mid-range data storage server. But we just decided to jump even higher and exchange the standard 6-terabyte disks into 8-terabyte ones. That mean our NAS36 model storage servers are now able to hold 288 terabytes of data in total.
The new NAS36 model with higher data capacity brings even more value to our customers not just because of the storage space it provides but also for its price. Yes, we have decided to slash the prices down below $25,000. That is going to bring considerable saving to our customers. [UPDATE Sep 2015: current price for maxed-out 288TB config with Seagate Archive 8TB drives is just under $22,000]
We are proud to announce this latest upgrade as we continue to provide petascale data storage servers at affordable prices.
We remain dedicated to open-source systems. We also remain committed to delivering pre-installed, pre-configured systems to our customers.
The NAS36 servers are rack-mount servers. We designed the 4U unit specially to hold large number of drives in a very limited space. That leaves ample amount of space for other necessary accessories inside your data center rack.
The 36 drives in the unit are all Seagate Archive Drives, mounted on a single backplane and controlled by a RAID controller. The unit holds 24 drives in front and 12 in the back making the unit case quite compact.
eRacks Systems is a leading provider of high-capacity, petascale data storage server solutions to companies and enterprises requiring massive amounts of storage data.
Our servers are suitable for application and web security on the cloud as well as Near-Line Storage. They are also configurable for NAS (Network Attached Storage) applications.
For a great storage solution at a considerable low price, contact us. We are available through email, phone and our website.
Ron August 19th, 2015
Posted In: NAS36, New products, Open Source, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 288TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS36, Open Source, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, Storage Server
eRacks/NAS36 Upgraded, 216TB / 4U now available Under $30K!
eRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server, with 36 removable 6TB hard drives, which yields a maximum of 216TB (Terabytes*) of raw storage with current widely-available technology. The eRacks/NAS36 rackmount server is shipped pre-configured to the user’s custom specs, with any available open-source software, and more flavors of Linux or BSD available than any other vendor.
Fremont, CA (PRWEB) October 3, 2014
eRacks Open Source Systems is pleased to announce the latest upgrade eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.
Available immediately, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of widely available 6TB drives, yields a total storage of 216TB*.
This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, nicely filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the all-front-loading 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, eRacks’ flagship storage server.
When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represents a density / price breakthrough – using the best value (lowest price/TB) 6TB drives, this enables 216TB* of raw storage in only 4U, and for less than $30,000, as configured on the eRacks website.
The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.
It’s signature service, eRacks will be happy to install any of the popular Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing fast in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSes.
eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFiler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.
Also available is OpenStack, and other OSS cloud software, such as Eucaluyptus or CloudStack, as well as best-of-breed Open Source software for BigData / Cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.
In addition, the eRacks policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or Open Source software on request – Contact eRacks today at http://eracks.com/contact to see how they can meet your needs.
Please email info@eracks.com to request a custom quote.
Note: *For the purposes of this press release, the term “Terabyte” is used to mean one trillion bytes – eRacks understands the issues about this, we are using the term as the disk drive and other industry manufacturers use it.
Dennis
eRacks
Dennis October 1st, 2014
Posted In: NAS36, News, Open Source, Ubuntu 14.04, Upgrades
Tags: eRacks, linux, NAS36, Rackmount server, ubuntu
eRacks/NAS36 Upgrade, 100TB / 4U / Under $20K
eRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server, with 36 removable 3.5″ hard drives, which yields a maximum of 144TB (Terabytes*) of raw storage with current widely-available technology. The eRacks/NAS36 rackmount server is shipped pre-configured to the user’s custom specs, with any available open-source software, and more flavors of Linux or BSD available than any other vendor.
Fremont, CA (PRWEB) February 14, 2014
eRacks Open Source Systems is pleased to announce theeRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.
Available immediately, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of widely available 4TB drives, yields a total storage of 144TB.
With the forthcoming 6TB drives from WD HGST, this will increase to 216 Terabytes*, giving a truly petascale solution in only 4U of rackspace.
This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, nicely filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the all-front-loading 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, eRacks’ flagship storage server.
When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represent a density / price breakthrough – using the best value (lowest price/TB) 3TB drives, this enables 108TB of raw storage in only 4U, and for less than $20,000, as configured on the eRacks website.
The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage 
can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.
It’s signature service, eRacks will be happy to install any of the popular Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing fast in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSes.
eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFiler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.
Also available is best-of-breed Open Source software for BigData / Cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.
In addition, the eRacks policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or Open Source software on request – Contact eRacks today at info(at)eracks(dot)com to see how they can meet your needs.
*For the purposes of this press release, the term “Terabyte” is used to mean one trillion bytes – eRacks understands the issues about this, we are using the term as the disk drive and other industry manufacturers use it.
Regards,
Dennis
Dennis February 14th, 2014
Posted In: NAS36, Open Source, servers, Ubuntu 14.04, Upgrades