wise to throw away a working hard drive because it is old?

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smith94672

Limp Gawd
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Jun 3, 2005
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I currently have two old hard drives in good working condition. One is about 80 gb and is almost 9 years old. The other is 160 gb and almost 7 years old. Both are IDE 7200 rpm, made by Seagate, and have been used daily. I did full scans of both recently and there were zero bad sectors.

Neither drive is giving me problems. However, hard drives are notorious for mechanical wear and tear and the rule of thumb seems to be maybe an average of 5 years for the life-span of a hard drive.

Should I continue using these drives? Or move their data somewhere else and just throw the hard drives away? ( what's the point in keeping the drives if they are going to die soon anyway? )
 
What's really going to frost your hind is when you upgrade to a new disk and it dies in 2 months.
Use them until you outgrow them.
Take backups of anything important, always.
 
I would probably trash them. Hard drives are dirt cheap these days, and the performance of new drives is much much better than older drives.
 
I don't like tossing working hardware, toss 'em in a anti-static bag and put 'em into storage. Never know when you need an IDE drive for some little project or something.
 
movax said:
I don't like tossing working hardware, toss 'em in a anti-static bag and put 'em into storage. Never know when you need an IDE drive for some little project or something.
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This. No reason to throw away something that is perfectly fine. I still have two old IDE drives(500GB) in storage that I only use to keep backups of backups on and are stored in a fire-proof box in the garage. You can get a IDE to SATA adapter so you'll still be able to use it with newer motherboards that don't come with those ports anymore.
 
Yeah keep them and throw them in a box. More than likely somehow someway you'll find a use for them, someday.

I have a few broken ones in a box that I haven't thrown out because I've been meaning to take them apart and get a good look at em :D
 
SicKlown42012 said:
This. No reason to throw away something that is perfectly fine. I still have two old IDE drives(500GB) in storage that I only use to keep backups of backups on and are stored in a fire-proof box in the garage. You can get a IDE to SATA adapter so you'll still be able to use it with newer motherboards that don't come with those ports anymore.
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Yes but, even if they are functioning perfectly, what is the point of keeping them for backups if they are going to die soon because they are old and were used very often?
 
Please consider donating unwanted hardware to a local charter/private/parochial school. If you'd like, I can make sure your drives go somewhere they are needed.

Yes but, even if they are functioning perfectly, what is the point of keeping them for backups if they are going to die soon because they are old and were used very often
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That doesn't really make sense...hard drive failure rates drop off dramatically after 3~4 years.

note: I have nothing against public schools, but they usually aren't interested in one-off donations like this.
 
smith94672 said:
Yes but, even if they are functioning perfectly, what is the point of keeping them for backups if they are going to die soon because they are old and were used very often?
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You said that they're working perfectly as of now under full use. That means there is a low chance of them suddenly breaking when used infrequently from now on. I've never had a drive drop dead without any warning, no matter how old they are so I don't think it's something to be overly worried about.
 
I would use them as long as they work. They are too small for backups and even if they fail tomorrow, nobody should use harddrives for critical stuff without RAID anyway.
 
I have 12 to 15 unused fully functional HDDs ranging in size from 60 Gb to 350 GB and some dating back to 2000 or so. Most are SATA but a few are PATA. They all have tons of personnal data on them because they were either used as my primary drive or a backup drive. I thought of giving them away but 1) nobody seems to want them and 2) I would need to sanatize them first. Therefore, I am first going to take the magnet out of a few of them as the permanent magnet in these things is incredibly strong and great for magnetizing tool tips. Second, I am going to smash the #$E*%*&^*^ out of them with an 8 Lb sledge hammer. Third, their remains are going in the metal recycle bin.

All of them represent a awesome display of both incredible technology and the ability to very reliably mass produce a high speed precision mechanical device. Because of this it pains me to destroy them but they will never be used again and they are now just taking up needed space.
 
My main OS drive is still an 80 GB Hitachi Deskstar IDE drive. Been using it for that purpose for at least 5 years now, without issues. When I upgrade to a new system later this year I'll be using it for backups.

Do you have any idea how expensive an 80 GB Flash drive would be? If you actually test the backups you made, there's little risk of losing any data by using older HDDs. As pointed out, new HDDs aren't much more reliable than old ones anyway. Ditto for SSDs and other Flash media. The weak die first :)
 
I have one Linux system OS running on 10GB IDE. Still doable.

Don't throw away old good disks. Perhaps they are no longer relevant for generic home use, and if you don't want, give them to other users. Folks having interest in OS/virtualization usually appreciate a lot of hard disks so that they can spread the disk load for VM. Some users just want more disks.

For example, post free-offer on the relevant forum. With enough volumes, some may be interested in getting the entire lot from you. I have to be honest if one or two extremely low-capacity disks maybe they are not willing to go through shipping process.

Edit : usually this is valid within US for US users because shipping cost is reasonable and delivery fast. If you have to ship across the world then other overheads will complicate scenario unless you have enough volume.
 
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copy your data and keep them as backups. you will often find you need a drive for diagnostic purposes, and voila! Not a main drive, throw windows on it, see if the problem goes away, etc. there can be lots of uses for them. or encrypt the whole drive and put your beastiality porn on it.
 
Those old seagates never die! I have an 80gb/120gb/160gb they haven't died and have been going for about 6 or 7 years now.

I would keep them for little projects. Or you can ship them to me!
 
I have a few quantum fireballs (2GB) which are over 10yrs old and still work perfectly :)

They don't make 'em like they used to :p.
 
I still haven't thrown away my Toshiba MK1002MAV laptop drives heh. A massive 1083MB, most of them still work, crazily enough. 12.5mm, too, because they're so big they need a large form factor. I'd save 'em :)
 
THOMO said:
I have a few quantum fireballs (2GB) which are over 10yrs old and still work perfectly :)

They don't make 'em like they used to :p.
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You mean wear out their bearings and start sounding like a banshee which is being tortured? That's what my Fireballs began to sound like after a few years :p
 
If you are going to throw them out, make sure you use a program like DBAN to wipe all the data off.
 
I guess most people are like me. I keep all my junk until the pile gets too big and then I recycle it at the local electronics recyclers - a car load at a lime.

A 2TB drive costs about $100. So an 80GB drive is worth about $4. Not worth the time to put it in the mail box.

My junk pile - drives to be used for backups now include 3 1TB and 1 2TB (how did that get there) drives.:confused:
 
Here are a few options I would do (in order of decreasing preference):
1. Turn the single platter drive into a "Hard Drive Clock";
2. Keep drives in storage for later project/pinch;
3. Donate to a non-profit;
4. Drop off at recycling center;

Wipe the drives of all data before doing any of these. :cool:
 
jiminator said:
copy your data and keep them as backups. you will often find you need a drive for diagnostic purposes, and voila! Not a main drive, throw windows on it, see if the problem goes away, etc. there can be lots of uses for them. or encrypt the whole drive and put your beastiality porn on it.
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wtf... thanks for the giggle. disturbing but funny.

seriously i'd hang on to them providing space isn't an issue. as others have suggested, an old drive (in storage or not) is a useful thing to have around. someone mentioned getting a sata to usb adaptor. great for when you have a bunch of video's or files that's too big for flash or optical media that you want to share with a mate. you can drop HD with the data to a friend's house. they score a free drive, you've got one less HD around to worry about. win win.
 
I have about 4-5 old ide drives, 200-250GB range, that I stripe to increase capacity and for speed increase in an old pc. I use it for temporary storage space for moving data from system to system. I was going to toss them, but used together like this, they have found a new purpose.
 
Whos thumb and what rule says 5 years is the usable lifespan of a hard drive?

Use them until they quit working. If you're paranoid then don't use them for critical data. No matter whether the drive is 5 months old or 5 years old you should have your important data backed up somewhere else....
 
I personally wouldn't, you may end up needing it down the road.

EDIT: Blue Falcon and Red Falcon strike again! :D
 
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