What do you do with your old 1TB/2TB drives?

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sphinx99

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 23, 2006
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I imagine that others, like me, have accumulated a pile of lower capacity drives from past NAS/home servers. Has anyone found a meaningful use for these? (Meaningful meaning that either they are used for some functional purpose, or disposed in a way that allows some recovery of value.)

I tried listing them on the local Craigslist but no one seems to want these things. I was toying with the idea of finding a really cheap, slow 8-bay NAS and using them for quarterly or semi-annual archive from a main NAS but this seems like a lot of work.

Curious to hear what others have done.
 
They sit in a drawer until I decide to clean out the drawer a decade later.

It's never a bad thing to have more offline copies, in case you have mulltiple disk failures, or a lightning strike/fire. You'd be surprised how many years later a hard disk will spin up, even though I have yet to need anything from a disk more than ten years old.

Just be sure you put a note on them when to destroy, so you don't have an excuse ti just ignore them, and let the junk pile up. It's hard to make out one drive out of a sea of them :D
 
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People around here are asking over 60 for a used 2tb

I'll buy em for 40 or less else can't be bothered.

I need to make something to replace the 4tb in my media server.
 
So, I got an Aha experience.

replacing 1st gen 32mb cache samsung 7200rpm 1tb drives with a single 8tb hdd 7200rpm baracuda pro.
I could raid 4 of those samsung 1tb's together striped and the 8tb was still heaps faster, in everything but seq read\write it was still up to 4x faster!


There is no comparison, they've gotten faster as ssd's get faster - for some reason I imagined they were as slow as ever so I tested a few games and loaded from the 8tb vs a 960evo and there wasn't a big difference for over half of the games, a second or two which was amazing.. to me atleast.
After that I just ended up throwing them away in the bin cause they are so slow the only thing they're usable for is movies and series and who downloads that anymore ?

DX MD loading time ( between trains):
samsung 1tb - 1 minute 23 seconds.
Baracuda 8tb - 29 seconds.

The noise is what makes it unbearable in a main rig, it lives in the unraid.

Also, 79 bucks for 1tb pro drives (sata) , 90 bucks for nvme 1tb why save a buck when they're that cheap nowadays!
 
I still use all mine. It's not like its dead tech or anything... unless they are actually dead that is.
 
I've taken the covers off and used them as neat shelf pieces and given them to friends who've done the same.
 
I still use all sorts of old drives for 'cold storage' backups. Copy the data on them that you want to keep and put them away somewhere safe. If you really care about the data, copy it to a couple of drives. These end up being a type of 'super last-resort' backup. You can regularly take them out of storage and compare them to the originals (you have those right? and backups of them right?) and then put them away again.

Hell, I even have a 20gb drive that half of the drive (10tb) is nothing but bad sectors. Still works great on that first 10gb though, lol. Keep them and use them or give them away to those of us that can. Working drives are still good drives. (y)
 
sphinx99 said:
I imagine that others, like me, have accumulated a pile of lower capacity drives from past NAS/home servers. Has anyone found a meaningful use for these? (Meaningful meaning that either they are used for some functional purpose, or disposed in a way that allows some recovery of value.)

I tried listing them on the local Craigslist but no one seems to want these things. I was toying with the idea of finding a really cheap, slow 8-bay NAS and using them for quarterly or semi-annual archive from a main NAS but this seems like a lot of work.

Curious to hear what others have done.
Click to expand...
I feed our Chop Saw.
 
320GB or more still go in customers machines if there is space as a daily internal backup drive. Amazingly outside of this forum a lot of people usually have far less than 100GB of user data. Fancy that!
 
I still have a few 2TB drives in my system used with snapraid which allows any size drive to be part of the array as long as the parity drives are the largest. With that said I have been retiring them because they are not energy efficient compared to a 8TB drive that uses the same amount of power.
 
I load them up with "stuff" and send them to an old friend. He transfers that onto his system, then formats them and donates them to local schools / businesses (or shoots them).
 
build a cheap nas outta them and sell it on craigslist?

bonus points if you use small business in the title/description.
 
Non [H] people will still use regular HDDs all day long, so maybe you can upgrade a friend / family members rig?

I'd +1 cheap NAS or just get some USB enclosures and let friends / family use them as external drives. They can also work great for cheap backups for files that you can stash in different locations for redundancy. Cold crypto storage maybe?
 
Non [H] people will still use regular HDDs all day long, so maybe you can upgrade a friend / family members rig?
Click to expand...

These days I would just buy them a $50 SSD well depending on the friend. One reason is if anything goes wrong on the system I am the one to fix and it's a painful working on non ssd systems when you have been on SSDs for so long..
 
drescherjm said:
One reason is if anything goes wrong on the system I am the one to fix and it's a painful working on non ssd systems when you have been on SSDs for so long..
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Lol! Yep I know the feeling but some relatives / friends are only HD level close and not SSD level close. So they gets what they get :-D
 
I don't have massive storage needs anymore. So I'm actually still running multiple 2TB drives in my machine. I've got 6 of them in a couple different RAID arrays. I basically archive crap there. I use SSD's for most things now.
 
When they die you can take them apart and pull the magnets above and below the actuator, I use the flat ones on my fridge as fridge magnets haha.
 
DogsofJune said:
Stuff them in this. Mediasonic

Run them till they dead, then shoot'em
Click to expand...


Grr that gets close but every a single USB caddy fails in one ergonomic way or another.

Usual USB caddy fails -

Fail One - Power switch at the rear. Why would you not just want to turn USB storage on and off easily?
Fail Two - That awful 4 pin power connector from the 1970's. That one has it poking out the side which is even worse...good luck stopping that falling out at a critical point.
 
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I agree, but this was the reasonable solution at the time. There are far better products out there to choose from nowadays.
The one I have was tucked back on a shelf hooked to the router. Never had any issues, at least none yet. We will see after I get it back out of storage.
 
daglesj said:
Grr that gets close but every a single USB caddy fails in one ergonomic way or another.

Usual USB caddy fails -

Fail One - Power switch at the rear. Why would you not just want to turn USB storage on and off easily?
Fail Two - That awful 4 pin power connector from the 1970's. That one has it poking out the side which is even worse...good luck stopping that falling out at a critical point.
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Yeah, the reviews bash this thing pretty hard at times. :eek:

I've actually not had any usb external cases fail me, including an ide one that still has the 128gb limit on it (wow, can't believe we have flash drives that exceed that now). I guess the ones I bought were built really well.
DogsofJune said:
I agree, but this was the reasonable solution at the time. There are far better products out there to choose from nowadays.
Click to expand...
What is there today that's better than these? The idea of an esata external enclosure with a port multiplier works well for keeping some older drives that are occasionally used and/or swapped out. Like a huge esata dock with a little bit of protection. (y)
 
SamirD said:
You guys do know that older drives are still worth a bit as parts right?
https://www.harddriveparts.com/
https://www.donordrives.com/

That pcb, head pack, or other part might be exactly what some poor soul needs to get back their data. And you make a few bucks too. (y)
Click to expand...

Guys,

Norton Security blocked me from going to donordrives.com. This doesn't mean that the website owner is a scammer or hacker. Lots of websites have poor security and a hacker may been able to plant malware there. Proceed at your own risk.

upload_2019-7-18_21-21-43.png
 
I have a couple of 2TB hard drives mainly for secondary backups. It's mostly mp3s, photos, videos and other stuff. Some of it goes as far back as the late 90s. I have all of it on SSDs as well.
 
SamirD said:
What is there today that's better than these? The idea of an esata external enclosure with a port multiplier works well for keeping some older drives that are occasionally used and/or swapped out. Like a huge esata dock with a little bit of protection. (y)
Click to expand...
An actual server or diy NAS. Understandably not in the same price range, but most of us either can cobble something together with extra parts or know where to get the right deals on some. I know once upon a time I had an Atom mobo with quite a few sata ports. I think I sold it.
As a prefab, off the shelf, the Mediasonic isn't bad. A little cheaply made, but will do it's job.
 
daglesj said:
Grr that gets close but every a single USB caddy fails in one ergonomic way or another.

Usual USB caddy fails -

Fail One - Power switch at the rear. Why would you not just want to turn USB storage on and off easily?
Fail Two - That awful 4 pin power connector from the 1970's. That one has it poking out the side which is even worse...good luck stopping that falling out at a critical point.
Click to expand...

Run them in eSATA mode and they are very reliable. For the 12V, I cut the harness and respliced it so that it gets 12V from the computer PSU. Now it gets as clean and reliable power as the rest of the computer.

Here is one that powers my external Western Digital 10TB USB drive as well as the Mediasonic unit. I use a RCA Y cable to split the 12V to both units.

73707B0F-C81D-4945-A620-7DE2E0510BFF.jpeg 2BEBC186-ECC9-444B-B843-9F4C6392A88C.jpeg
 
westrock2000 said:
Run them in eSATA mode and they are very reliable. For the 12V, I cut the harness and respliced it so that it gets 12V from the computer PSU. Now it gets as clean and reliable power as the rest of the computer.

Here is one that powers my external Western Digital 10TB USB drive as well as the Mediasonic unit. I use a RCA Y cable to split the 12V to both units.

View attachment 175497 View attachment 175498
Click to expand...


Thanks, but I'd rather not.
 
sphinx99 said:
I imagine that others, like me, have accumulated a pile of lower capacity drives from past NAS/home servers. Has anyone found a meaningful use for these? (Meaningful meaning that either they are used for some functional purpose, or disposed in a way that allows some recovery of value.)

I tried listing them on the local Craigslist but no one seems to want these things. I was toying with the idea of finding a really cheap, slow 8-bay NAS and using them for quarterly or semi-annual archive from a main NAS but this seems like a lot of work.

Curious to hear what others have done.
Click to expand...

Hmm...I run a 256GB (SSD) drive in my main box (the one I'm on now) with that being the only drive. What do you mean what do you do with 1 and 2TB drives, lol. I am getting ready to upgrade to a 1TB (SSD) drive, as I only have about 30GB free (and since my 256 isn't really 256, it's more like 230). I do however have 4 other desktops, a few laptops and a server... so I don't need everything in the world on one box. My old laptop drives 2.5" went into my server (500gb each), so I put 5 of them (and tossed the rest of the laptop) into my server in RAID 0 as well as an 8TB external for backups just in case the RAID dies (which is likely given the drives aren't matched or designed for such use and of varying ages).
 
hey if sombody is stitting with 4x 2TB driver and wants to donate the to me i'll happily take em im running 4x 1TB in raid 5 currently
 
Isn't the right answer to this thread's question "target practice"?

But being serious, I see absolutely no use for 1TB or 2TB mechanical drives, not with SSDs as cheap as they are. So I take them to the scrapyard for recycling.

Yeah, I know that a movie library does not need a fast read or write speed so mechanical drives are OK for that purpose. However, the problem with them is the power inefficiency. A better choice is to go with a same size SSD that uses way less power, or a much larger drive that uses the same amount of power. For storage that's on 24/7, efficiency is very important.

drescherjm said:
I still have a few 2TB drives in my system used with snapraid which allows any size drive to be part of the array as long as the parity drives are the largest. With that said I have been retiring them because they are not energy efficient compared to a 8TB drive that uses the same amount of power.
Click to expand...

That's my motivation as well. I have retired all of my 1TB drives, replaced with SSDs, and am down to a pair of 2TB drives and four 3TB drives which are going to be phased out soon. The 2TB drives will be replaced by SSD, and the 3TB drives are being replaced by 10TB ones. My overall storage capacity will be much higher and energy use will be down because of SSDs replacing the smaller mechanical drives.
 
doublejack said:
Isn't the right answer to this thread's question "target practice"?

But being serious, I see absolutely no use for 1TB or 2TB mechanical drives, not with SSDs as cheap as they are. So I take them to the scrapyard for recycling.

Yeah, I know that a movie library does not need a fast read or write speed so mechanical drives are OK for that purpose. However, the problem with them is the power inefficiency..
Click to expand...

Good point about the power efficiency. Very good point. (y) So I have a pile of these old but very reliable Deskstars, and while I would not want to run them 24 x7 due to power issues, I can see using them for "near line" storage of basically archival materials. That said, given the price of a new 6-8-10 TB drive, it doesn't make sense to spend much on any kind of frame/case/housing, like say a Synology unit.:eek: My rig is housed in a Corsair 800D case, with two unused drive bays. so if I just wanted to add 1 or 2 high-capacity drives, no problem. But for occasional use of my collection of 1, 2 and 4 TB Deskstars, about 10 in all, are there any cheap-cheap alternatives, maybe even DIY?
 
My take was the OP meant dead drives. Guess that was wrong. As for me with strictly in home non-professional use, I see no reason to trash a working unit simply because larger ones are available. This goes for IDE drives too. If the drive passes at 100% in something like Crystal it gets used somehow. Storage redundancy.
 
Luke M said:
Put them in empty Easystore cases!
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Well, I was actually hoping that I could rig up something to use the drives in say RAID 5 or maybe with some app that makes all of the space on all of the drives appear as just one storage volume. Of course, this may not be possible.

My Plan B is to use these drives with a docking station, just as I do now. Not as convenient, but at least it works.
 
DogsofJune said:
Stuff them in this. Mediasonic
Click to expand...

Interesting, but price wise, you could just get a 4TB USB powered external drive that fits in your pocket for the same money.

Add another $50 and you can get an 8TB 3.5" external.

Its a sunken cost & effort unless you're putting in 4tb+ drives.

I think I'm just going to consolidate any data I want to keep, then pull the magnets and use them as paper weights & workshop blocks.
 
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Or replace the drives with larger ones. An enclosure like that has avenues to upgrade.
 
What's a good way to ship them that balances cost and reliability? I always figured the cost of shipping would almost completely negate the value of the drive.
 
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