What to do with old smaller drives?

Just wondering what you guys do with your smaller older drives?

I have a couple of 200GB and under drives that I'm not using and have no clue what I could possibly use them for.

I'm about to use some old 500GB drives to put in a box with the free version of unraid and the AirVideo and openssh plugins to put at my parents house. They're going to buy the AirVideo app for their iPhones/iPads and I'll transfer movies and TV shows they want to watch and they can stream them to their Apple TV via AirPlay. Once they've watched what I've given them I'll delete what's on there and load new stuff.

I have the same problems, lots of 120gb and 160gb drives. Was able to use a few to mod wii consoles and a few other things, but ran out of things to use them for. No real value in selling them or well keeping them, just hate to let them go to waste.

If you all have small drives you can't figure out uses for I would be more than happy to take them off your hands.  I will cover shipping to my address and throw in a little extra money to cover your time and packing materials.

We (Greenleaf) uses smaller drives to test and burn in new components and things we might be testing for review.

Send me a PM with how many drives you have and we can figure it out from there.

Offsite backup

Give them away

I try not to get too carried away with hoarding, so a few months ago I threw away any IDE drives I still had and maybe a small SATA or two after punching a hole through all the platters with a power drill.

I put them in a test setup and currently playing with freebsd booting in ZFS root. Once I get done playing with that I will install Solaris and play with that. The only issue right now with Solaris 11 is that I can't get it to install or boot with more than one processor core.

The only issue right now with Solaris 11 is that I can't get it to install or boot with more than one processor core.

OpenIndiana FTW.

I have a IDE/SATA to USB cable (~$10) and use them as gigantic USB sticks when I'm visiting family/friends.  Sneakernet FTW!

The only issue right now with Solaris 11 is that I can't get it to install or boot with more than one processor core.

 

OpenIndiana FTW.

Unfortunately I tried OpenIndiana and I get a blue screen when it starts the install gui. Have not figured out how to get past this and from the looks of they're install instructions they haven't either. I have tried both and Intel based and amd based build with on board and Ati graphics. My guess is it just doesn't like my choice of motherboard vendor which are both Gigabyte.

Appreciate the recommendation though

I have a IDE/SATA to USB cable (~$10) and use them as gigantic USB sticks when I'm visiting family/friends.  Sneakernet FTW!

Sneakernet FTW!!!!!

I remember this from years ago.

We used this term before lans!!

Offsite backup

 

Give them away

 

I try not to get too carried away with hoarding, so a few months ago I threw away any IDE drives I still had and maybe a small SATA or two after punching a hole through all the platters with a power drill.

I sold boxes to these guys.

http://www.driveguys.com

Just wondering what you guys do with your smaller older drives?

 

I have a couple of 200GB and under drives that I'm not using and have no clue what I could possibly use them for.

People buy old hard drives from ebay. Sometimes the old model numbers matter to people.

My friend told me once he made a killing selling old parallel 8 bit scsi drives.

He won a lot at an auction, then put them up on eBay.

Seems people needed them for the older SCSI based Samplers.

One man's garbage is another man's gold.

You could make a buy it now ebay ad. for 1 hard drive out of a lot of what ever you list.

I used to do that for my igo power tips.

1 buy it now for $3.99.  The sale was for 1pc of any item listed in the advertisement.

Buy it now auctions have the option for Make an offer.

People were usually more then willing to make an offer for more then one item at a price.

Everyone so far who has posted obviously doesn't enjoy fun, I recommend turning your HDD into a saw, then, using that saw to cut up your other HDDs.

Much more fun.

If you don't like the above idea, then, go back to the old youtube favorite:-

Although, the latter looks a lot more boring.

As you've already figured out from the comments above, there's not much to do with them.

If your UnRAID system doesn't have a cache drive, you could use one for that (if you want one).    But other than that, simply selling them on e-bay for a few $$ or simply toss them.    Personally, I keep a boxful (~ 20) for use with older systems (I help a lot of folks with PC issues, so it's handy to have spare drives for when others fail) ... and whenever I get too many for the box I just toss the smallest of the lot.

I do run a detailed set of diagnostics on every old drive I get [first a Quick Test and Extended Test with Data Lifeguard;  then a Level 2 run of Spinrite] ... and if there are ANY errors I toss the drive.

Thanks for all of the ideas guys

I think I may use them as the main drive in some of the older machines I have and donate them or give them away to someone who needs a computer.

But selling them is appealing

People buy them, just make it appealing to buy. Keep them out of the dumps if possible.

 

But selling them is appealing

Just don't get unrealistic expectations.  Small (250GB and smaller) drives go for fairly low prices on e-bay.  For example, a set of 3 160GB drives just sold for $16.95;  another 160GB is listed with a $17.95 "buy-it-now" price including shipping and hasn't sold;  a set of 2 250GB drives is listed at $15.27; an 80GB is listed for a $9.99 "buy-it-now" price;  etc.

If you list them as "thoroughly tested" -- and take the time to at least run both Quick & Extended WD Data Lifeguard tests;  that will make them a bit more attractive.    But don't get greedy 

As already stated I would be willing to buy some of these smaller drives, if the price is right.  I am mostly interested in the drives that are 250GB and smaller.

I just started selling my smaller drives (300GB -> 750GB) on FleaBay. People will still pay good money for old drives. More than you might think!

If you can be bothered to put the effort in, it's worth it. It is a lot of hassle to list, package up and ship them, but I don't want to destroy/discard mine, so I'm selling them.

Anything you can do to keep them out of a landfill is good for all of us!

Agree -- regardless of how much $$ you get, the REAL benefit of selling them is they are being put to a good use instead of further polluting our environment.

.45ACP + .223?

Certainly NOT environmentally friendly !!  :)

This is what we do with old/dead hard drives at work:

It cracks the spindle and bends the platters in half.