what to do with many old HD's? multiHD?

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drcrappants

Weaksauce
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Aug 26, 2011
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I have several HDs from the past that I do not know what to do with. I have a 60gb from a ps3 from 5 yrs ago, and probably a 100gb+ laying around somewhere (inside an external case portable HD).

what can i do with them? tossing them seems to be a waste; can i stick it in my new rig and put media (movies, music, etc) on them? its oldness meant slower speed (according to Danny from this forum).

ideas please!
 
To me they are generally not worth using. I have dozens of such drives at work. They have low reliability, poor performance and energy efficiency compared to todays drives. And for low reliability I am talking about drives that are > 5 years old.

can i stick it in my new rig and put media (movies, music, etc) on them?
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If you have the ports you can use them. I assume some of these are ide. However I would just spend $65 USA and get a 2TB drive to replace them all.
 
drescherjm said:
To me they are generally not worth using. I have dozens of such drives at work. They have low reliability, poor performance and energy efficiency compared to todays drives. And for low reliability I am talking about drives that are > 5 years old.



If you have the ports you can use them. I assume some of these are ide. However I would just spend $65 USA and get a 2TB drive to replace them all.
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what he said.

i wouldnt put anything important on a 5 year old hdd. if it is sata i would keep a few around for "just in case" purposes.
 
hmm so tossing them is the opinion here?

i think they are sata, though not fully sure. what is just in case ?
 
hmm so tossing them is the opinion here?
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One use is backups. But don't rely on just 1 drive to have your only backup.

At home I use a 160 GB and a 250 GB drive for backups. They only get powered on during the 2:00AM backup then they spin down after that. The backup software alternates between the 160GB and a 250GB so that I have at least 1 good copy of the os + most important data on each drive.
 
drescherjm said:
One use is backups. But don't rely on just 1 drive to have your only backup.

At home I use a 160 GB and a 250 GB drive for backups. They only get powered on during the 2:00AM backup then they spin down after that. The backup software alternates between the 160GB and a 250GB so that I have at least 1 good copy of the os + most important data on each drive.
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hmm sounds complicated. any way to do this easily?
 
I use them as OS disks for my servers. I don't store anything important on them, just the OS and some logs.
 
drcrappants said:
what is just in case ?
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say you want to put windows 8 on your system but you dont want it in your main hdd?

say your main hdd dies and you have to order a new one? throw one of the old ones in your system until your new one comes in.

those are just in case situations for me.
 
I wipe them, take the screws out of the top, put a rubber band around the drive to keep the top on and then give them to local schools for their science class. The teachers are appreciative, the kids love handling them and get to see what and how their computer that they use every day works.
 
Use it as a backup to your backups.

Put photos on it. Encrypt it. Store it somewhere out of the house. A few months later, re-do it all over again.
 
Well if you have a spare PC with enough SATA ports, just stick the drives in there and use that PC as a backup file server with FreeNAS or even WHS 2011.

Everyone else has pretty much covered all the worthwhile things you could do with old drives.
 
Backups of backups, every now and then.

I never get rid of drives that work.
 
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