What should I do with some extra old hard drives?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33178

) May 7th, 2016

I was digging through my shelves earlier and found a bunch of old hard drives. I’ve recently upgraded to 1 and 2 TB drives on my desktop, but I never threw the old ones away.

I have a 320gb, a couple of 640 gb, and one other. They all seem to work just fine (I spun them up) and saw what was on them (nothing).

I hate to throw them away, but then, what do I do with a bunch of hard drives that are just sitting around?

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5 Answers

grab some cheap cheap hardware off ebay, build a cheap pc, and donate it to some poor family.

ragingloli (51987

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Advertise them on Craig’s list or somewhere. I could have kept my old computer (ME) if I had a new hard drive for it. It had some cool games, WORD, and was easier to use (sans internet connection) than this unit (Windows 7) I have now. I’ll bet some computer nerd would want them!

kritiper (25757

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If you have an old pc, stick them in that and use it as network storage.

XOIIO (18328

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I agree with donating. There is probably a organization such as freegeek near you that will use them to help people in need without any additional cost to you.

johnpowell (17881

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Donate to Goodwill.
If the hard drives cannot be re-used, they will be recycled. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and I notice that Goodwill is now specifically mentioning that this is a section of the business where employees with special needs (incapable of working at the retail level) find work.
I’m uncertain if Dell is still part of the program.

ibstubro (18804

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