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Author Topic: What do you do with your used hard drives?  (Read 4345 times)

EricWHiss

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« on: February 01, 2010, 03:12:34 am »

Hi,

I just upgraded the drives in my RAID working and back-up volumes to get more capacity.  Now i've got 6 x 400gb, 4x500gb sata, and 2  250gb sata drives.    Is there a market for used drives or do you keep them for extra backup or something else really cool to do with them?

thanks,
Eric
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Jonathan Wienke

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2010, 08:59:12 am »

Put them in a cheap USB enclosure and use them for archiving data.
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PeterAit

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2010, 11:37:15 am »

Quote from: EricWHiss
Hi,

I just upgraded the drives in my RAID working and back-up volumes to get more capacity.  Now i've got 6 x 400gb, 4x500gb sata, and 2  250gb sata drives.    Is there a market for used drives or do you keep them for extra backup or something else really cool to do with them?

thanks,
Eric

I have a couple of USB drive docks (let you easily plug in bare drives) and use them for rotating data backups.
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mmurph

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2010, 03:58:26 pm »

Ditto.

Backups. Clone newly restaged systems (with Acronis, etc. ). Archive TV, like   10 hours a day of Olympics for friends (we get Canadian tv here - maybe everyone does by now?) Lots of ski jumping, XC skiing, plus curling!
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digitaldog

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2010, 06:39:14 pm »

I don’t even fuss with enclosures anymore, I use the Newtech Voyager: http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/produ...productid=17234
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Paul Sumi

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2010, 09:34:48 pm »

Quote from: digitaldog
I don’t even fuss with enclosures anymore, I use the Newtech Voyager: http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/produ...productid=17234

That's pretty cool.  But how do you store your bare drives?

Paul
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2010, 09:52:28 pm »

Now I am totally confused. The docking stations costs about $90 by itself. Why would I buy a docking station to use most likely outdated drive capacities (i.e., 80-250 Gb) one by one, when I can get for the same amount of money a brand new 1 Tb drive? The math is even worse for enclosures, especially twelve of them (not to mention twelve power cables, twelve power adapters and twelve outlets).

Panopeeper

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2010, 10:14:37 pm »

Quote from: Slobodan Blagojevic
Now I am totally confused. The docking stations costs about $90 by itself. Why would I buy a docking station to use most likely outdated drive capacities (i.e., 80-250 Gb) one by one, when I can get for the same amount of money a brand new 1 Tb drive?
When creating backups, the value of one 1 TB drive is not the same as 5 drives, 200 GB each. If the 1 TB drive fails, you lose perhaps 1 TB, but if you copied the data to 3 smaller drives, your data is much safer.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2010, 10:15:02 pm by Panopeeper »
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Jack Flesher

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2010, 10:44:34 pm »

Quote from: Paul Sumi
That's pretty cool.  But how do you store your bare drives?

Paul

I use a Voyager for loading data on my old drives too, and I store them offsite in these -- works great for my tertiary, redundant back-up. They cradle the drives securely, come with labels for the front and spine, will stack like books on a shelf or flat, and 10 of them only set you back $55: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/cases.php
« Last Edit: February 01, 2010, 10:49:07 pm by Jack Flesher »
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titan

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2010, 12:42:07 am »

Yes, there is a market for them. You can place them on Ebay. I wouldn't expect any great returns, though. And you'll want to be sure those drives are clean:
http://www.dban.org/
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EricWHiss

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2010, 02:15:04 am »

Quote from: titan
Yes, there is a market for them. You can place them on Ebay. I wouldn't expect any great returns, though. And you'll want to be sure those drives are clean:
http://www.dban.org/


If I go that route I am wondering if I need to clean if they were pulled from RAID 5 arrays?  Isn't it all lost once the order is mixed up?  Would I still need to wipe?
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Jonathan Wienke

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2010, 08:24:29 am »

Quote from: EricWHiss
If I go that route I am wondering if I need to clean if they were pulled from RAID 5 arrays?  Isn't it all lost once the order is mixed up?  Would I still need to wipe?

If you have all the drives in the array, you can figure out the correct drive order by trial and error without too much difficulty. I'd wipe the drive anyway just to be certain.
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digitaldog

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2010, 09:28:07 am »

Quote from: Paul Sumi
That's pretty cool.  But how do you store your bare drives?

Labeled in a drawer.
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mmurph

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2010, 11:00:35 am »

Thermaltake BlacX

Thermaltake BlacX External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station - 2.5” & 3.5” - USB 2.0 & eSATA  

$35 at Newegg.   Wait for a rebate and grab it for $20.

Throw the drives in a stack in a box with a post-it, or write on them, if there is nothing too important.  I have about 15 200+- GB drives after upgrading to 4x1.5 TB NAS.
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fike

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What do you do with your used hard drives?
« Reply #14 on: February 03, 2010, 04:40:23 pm »

I give them away (freecycle) or sell them for a nominal cost $20 to family and friends.  At least I have greater assurance that after I have scrubbed the data no one is going to go back and try to recover my personal info.  

I also like the Thermaltake dock.  I got the one with eSATA.  It was very nice.
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