Buying a very old drive but new. Reliable?

[carrierPigeon]

I used to be a Mac user and I have one program that I need to still keep around.

I plan to set up on an older Mac (and sell one that is newer). The older Mac is a 2009 Mac mini and so I want to replace the hard drive. It seems that the computer uses a drive with a thickness of 9 mm. Most of the new drives today are 7 mm. I'd imagine that some people have made these smaller drives fit but I know that can be an uphill battle and I want to stick to a pretty simple process.

I am really trying to stick to a low budget since this is not something that I'm going to be using much, and I really don't need much space. There is some value in being able to later repurpose the drive (buying a small SSD, etc). But, I have not come across anything 9 mm and inexpensive.

If I buy a very old drive (10-15 years old), but that is new, will it still have the reliability level that someone buying the drive back then would have? I know that old hard drives fail. But, will the "clock" that we are talking about have effectively not started yet?

 

[pendragon1]

I used to be a Mac user and I have one program that I need to still keep around.

I plan to set up on an older Mac (and sell one that is newer). The older Mac is a 2009 Mac mini and so I want to replace the hard drive. It seems that the computer uses a drive with a thickness of 9 mm. Most of the new drives today are 7 mm. I'd imagine that some people have made these smaller drives fit but I know that can be an uphill battle and I want to stick to a pretty simple process.

I am really trying to stick to a low budget since this is not something that I'm going to be using much, and I really don't need much space. There is some value in being able to later repurpose the drive (buying a small SSD, etc). But, I have not come across anything 9 mm and inexpensive.

If I buy a very old drive (10-15 years old), but that is new, will it still have the reliability level that someone buying the drive back then would have? I know that old hard drives fail. But, will the "clock" that we are talking about have effectively not started yet?

some ssds come with stick on shims. but looking at the video below, it doesnt really matter with the way it mounts.

 

[kirbyrj]

Worst case use a shim. Like pendragon1 said, some retail packaging for SSD's still come with them, but it wouldn't make a difference either way. The screw holes aren't going to change due to the thickness of the drive. The screws hold in the drive, not the thickness of the drive. You wouldn't notice a difference.

 

[pendragon1]

yup and one other thing, those "grounding pads" while yes they are grounded, they are really for just noise dampening. the drive itself is grounded through the power cable. with an ssd you wont need em.

 

[somebrains]

I used to be a Mac user and I have one program that I need to still keep around.

I plan to set up on an older Mac (and sell one that is newer). The older Mac is a 2009 Mac mini and so I want to replace the hard drive. It seems that the computer uses a drive with a thickness of 9 mm. Most of the new drives today are 7 mm. I'd imagine that some people have made these smaller drives fit but I know that can be an uphill battle and I want to stick to a pretty simple process.

I am really trying to stick to a low budget since this is not something that I'm going to be using much, and I really don't need much space. There is some value in being able to later repurpose the drive (buying a small SSD, etc). But, I have not come across anything 9 mm and inexpensive.

If I buy a very old drive (10-15 years old), but that is new, will it still have the reliability level that someone buying the drive back then would have? I know that old hard drives fail. But, will the "clock" that we are talking about have effectively not started yet?

I’d just snapshot the existing machine and run it as a vm.