Spare HDDs and nothing to use them for

[penguin8967]

I have 2 spare HDDs - both 2.5 inch, one 1TB and the other 160GB. They are both empty and unused. On my main PC, the only storage I have at the moment is 500GB of pure SSD storage, which is currently just under half of its capacity.

 

Should I re-use one or both of these drives as extra storage, and if so, what's the best way to do it without plugging it in internally?

[Viper9]

You could buy an enclosure and use the 1TB hard drive has an external HDD. 

 

Like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Tool-free-Enclosure-Optimized-EC-UASP/dp/B00OJ3UJ2S/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=hdd+enclosure&qid=1589915070&sr=8-3

[MartinKweh]

I think there is something like an external hard drive dock that can be used for situations like this.

[Dedayog]

2 minutes ago, MartinKweh said:

I think there is something like an external hard drive dock that can be used for situations like this.

Something like this?  Usually more for cloning/duping but I think it would work.

 

https://www.amazon.com/WEme-Dual-Bay-External-Duplicator-Tool-Free/dp/B00PTUQE4M/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=external+hdd+dock&qid=1589915214&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFYUjZIMEJUMFkzWEYmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAyMzYwOTIzVExJM08wVlFNUTBJJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA3ODQxNDAzN0dMN0lSSzBRMDFaJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

 

[RadiatingLight]

Take apart the 160GB one and just check out how it works inside, it's pretty cool. (obviously all data on there will be gone)

an HDD that small has no practical use nowadays.

You could use the 1TB as a game library or something. Why not plug it in internally?

[Boomwebsearch]

20 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

Take apart the 160GB one and just check out how it works inside, it's pretty cool. (obviously all data on there will be gone)

an HDD that small has no practical use nowadays.

 

You need to be in a clean room to be able to take apart and put a hard drive back together without risking introducing contaminating particles (even so small, can stop the drive from functioning correctly again and potentially damage any data that was stored on the drive). There are a ton of non-functional drives that are available for free in most cases that you can take apart to analyze how they are designed/work, why would you ruin a perfectly good drive that could be resold if you don't have anything to do with it or as an extra storage drive. Always keep a separate backup of your data and one off-site to prevent data loss, there are still many laptops selling with 128GB drives or even lower than that, even though 160GB is not a significant amount of storage by modern standards, it's not completely useless. There are plenty of things you can do using spare drives, you could build a NAS or network recording server, use them as OS drives for making systems temporarily functional for troubleshooting, use them with a Raspberry Pi to host personal game/storage servers, use as a portable drive with a USB drive enclosure, etc.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, Boomwebsearch said:

 

You need to be in a clean room to be able to take apart and put a hard drive back together without risking introducing contaminating particles (even so small, can stop the drive from functioning correctly again and potentially damage any data that was stored on the drive). There are a ton of non-functional drives that are available for free in most cases that you can take apart to analyze how they are designed/work, why would you ruin a perfectly good drive that could be resold if you don't have anything to do with it or as an extra storage drive. Always keep a separate backup of your data and one off-site to prevent data loss, there are still many laptops selling with 128GB drives or even lower than that, even though 160GB is not a significant amount of storage by modern standards, it's not completely useless. There are plenty of things you can do using spare drives, you could build a NAS or network recording server, use them as OS drives for making systems temporarily functional for troubleshooting, use them with a Raspberry Pi to host personal game/storage servers, use as a portable drive with a USB drive enclosure, etc.

True -- Taking apart the drive would ruin it, but the only real use for a drive like that might be the raspberry pi or OS drives.

It's his choice, but when it's possible to buy a 128GB SSD for $20 it becomes pretty hard to argue for using that old HDD, even for a raspberry pi.

[Dedayog]

Just now, RadiatingLight said:

True -- Taking apart the drive would ruin it, but the only real use for a drive like that might be the raspberry pi or OS drives.

It's his choice, but when it's possible to buy a 128GB SSD for $20 it becomes pretty hard to argue for using that old HDD, even for a raspberry pi.

I second the taking it apart and losing all the datas! They're interesting and quite gorgeous inside.   Then mount nicely on wall in your PC room.

[penguin8967]

Both the drives have nothing on and I got the smaller one for free anyway, might be worth a try lmao

[Boomwebsearch]

3 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

True -- Taking apart the drive would ruin it, but the only real use for a drive like that might be the raspberry pi or OS drives.

It's his choice, but when it's possible to buy a 128GB SSD for $20 it becomes pretty hard to argue for using that old HDD, even for a raspberry pi.

1 minute ago, Dedayog said:

I second the taking it apart and losing all the datas! They're interesting and quite gorgeous inside.   Then mount nicely on wall in your PC room.

 

LOL, why not get dead hard drives and use them for this purpose, it's your choice in the end, although I wouldn't break a working drive.

[Dedayog]

13 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

 

LOL, why not get dead hard drives and use them for this purpose, it's your choice in the end, although I wouldn't break a working drive.

I'd weigh the cost and effort of acquiring a dead drive vs the cost of just killing a drive he won't realistically use ever.  Be honest, don't hoard.

 

it's okay to waste a $20 drive.

[bmx6454]

save them as spares? i have a stack of like 10+ at this point lol