what to do with old Platter drives

fightingfi

fightingfi

2[H]4U
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Oct 9, 2008
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gotta few 74 gig raptors , 500 gig, 320, 80 what to do with them any ideas? are they worth selling ? how much ?
 
They will be worth something in the future for people that are restoring vintage machines and want hardware that is relevant for the time period.
 
I've seen people take the cover off, and turn them into functional analog clocks. Very cool conversation pieces.
 
are they worth selling ?
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Maybe if you sell them all in a bundle for like $50 to $75 total. Other than that it probably won't be worth your time. Shipping costs will be around what some of the individual drives are worth.
 
drescherjm said:
Maybe if you sell them all in a bundle for like $50 to $75 total. Other than that it probably won't be worth your time. Shipping costs will be around what some of the individual drives are worth.
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I've got like 100+ drives and I'd be take them all! They are so heavy!
 
fightingfi said:
gotta few 74 gig raptors , 500 gig, 320, 80 what to do with them any ideas? are they worth selling ? how much ?
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Run them through a bulk eraser a couple times.
Then spike them off some concrete a few times.
Then take them out for a junk shoot at the range.
Then find a 50 gallon drum. Drop them in. Dump in 5 gallons of gasoline and some wood.
Light a match.
 
There may be charitable e-cyclling, but I'd bet more on places taking them to resell...
 
I use the magnets to hang tools on side of my toolbox. Friend of mine made a magnetic wall rack for his Chef's knives.

As for the platters, thinking a hanging mobile for a sunny window is in order.
 
I've been half thinking about embedding some in the kitchen wall for pots n pans :) (probably a backer board then some 1/4 drywall)
 
I used to buy old non-glass platter HDDs from Iowa Prison Industries, and sell the platters to someone who would make roses out of them
(like this pictured below).

Made quite a bit of cash, since the drives were dang near free.
The magnets were fun to play with, and also made a few HDD speakers.

384906077_2790b64115_z.jpg



or you always just do the [H] thing :D
 
I can't believe you all are suggesting destructive methods on WORKING hard drives like that. What a waste of functional hardware.

Granted, if they were dead hard drives, that would be another matter, but nothing about the original post suggests that.

I'd suggest taking Zepher's advice and tracking down a community like VOGONS that deals in period-appropriate machines, where the period in question sometimes goes up into Core 2-era stuff. That would be a prime market for ol' high-RPM Raptors, since SSDs technically postdate the period-correctness they're aiming for and have their own complications with OSes like Windows XP (partition alighment, no TRIM and all that crap).

Heck, maybe I'd be interested for the right price. 74 GB means I don't have to worry about any 48-bit LBA-related problems, and a couple of fast SATA drives would complement my P4EE 98SE/XP gaming box quite well, so long as the one for 98SE doesn't cross that 128 GB threshold. 320 to 500 GB would be spacious for XP.
 
We have a local recycler that will pay money for the hard drives. I would guess if they are cleaned up and you can handle them for for a few bucks to tthem. Also I generally drill the drive and handle it off for a buck or two more to my recuycling price. This guy also handles main boards, CPUs, Memory plus whole tower systems. Pays different pricing with and without drives in towers. So the choice is yours.
 
If you want to hold on to drives it's good to spin them up every year or two to keep the bearings in good order.
I have had drives sit for many years without problem but have heard some fellow hardware oldfags mentioning the above before.

Anyone want some 80mb drives lol?
I wish I'd kept some of the older HDDs when they were giant AF, quantum fireball or something IIRC. Some of the old mainframe hdds were the size of records.

XP is fine with SSDs, been doing that for years. Just ensure you have a good spinning rust clone of the original image, in case TRIM is an issue/frequent daily use etc.

If they're broken they make great platter launchers, you can have HDD platter races.
Or make wind chimes.
 
N4CR said:
Anyone want some 80mb drives lol?
I wish I'd kept some of the older HDDs when they were giant AF, quantum fireball or something IIRC. Some of the old mainframe hdds were the size of records.
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80 MB HDDs? Are they all Macintosh II or SE/30 pulls or something? That's about the only time I've ever come across HDDs that small, and replacing them with modern ones isn't as straightforward due to the 50-pin SCSI interface. SCSI2SD and SCSI2CF adapters aren't cheap, either.

The bigger ones you may be trying to recall are the Quantum Bigfoot drives, which were 5.25" drives generally in the 4 GB to 8 GB range, meant to be the slower, cheaper option for computer builds back in the Pentium II days. I've come across a couple over the years, and despite the benefits you'd expect of bigger platters with more area to store bits on, the industry pretty much standardized on 3.5" HDDs after that.

These days, you'd be hard-pressed to find a sensible number of 3.5" HDD mounts in a modern case, now that everything's headed toward 2.5" and M.2 SSDs. 5.25" bays are all but gone, which is a shame since I like bay/pump top reservoirs for liquid cooling loops.
 
Contact some local charities. Some have folks that will repair older PCs for use by folks who can't afford newer ones. HDs are often one of the parts that need replacing. For someone just needing a basic web browsing computer, an 80gig drive is plenty.

Could probably claim a charitable tax deduction for the current market value of the drives.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
What happened to that initiative in a FS/FT thread (IINM) about gathering enough drives to do "How many SSDs would it take to stop a 50 cal?" :)
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I hadn't heard anything about it. I think the guy picked up a few drives, and I have a few myself but that's the last I heard. We'd need quite a few of them to even have a chance of stopping a .50BMG round. Kyle used about 18 hard drives, so we'd need enough 2.5" SSD's to equal the same depth. I suspect that SSD's are less effective at stopping a bullet than mechanical disks are. Therefore, more SSD's than that might be necessary.
 
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