What do you do w/ your old hard disks for disposal

[whitey]

Got quite a stack of older drives that have been de-commed for larger capacity, no issues w/ them but they are 1-1.5 TB drives along w/ a pair of 4tb drives from goharddrive (almost 20 total now). The 1-1.5 TB's are OLD, hitachi ultrastar solid drives but I am debating what to do w/ them...can't hardly sell them even though no issues/errors I've ever had w/ them but they are indeed 6-8 yrs old.

What do ya'll do/suggest, simple IT HW recycler after dban/wipe, target practice w/ my 1911 pistol (this sounds the most fun to me), let kiddos raise hell and beat the snot outta them w/ a mini sledge hammer :-D...etc.

What's the vote arnd here? My trigger finger must be itchin' :-D

 

[CreoleLakerFan]

Target practice!

 

[StevenDTX]

 

[whitey]

YEEEEESSSSSS! JUST what I wanted to hear! :-D

Inspirational!!!

 

[fractal]

I always recommend dban if the drive spins.

Target practice is fine afterwords.

Sledge is good enough if it doesn't spin.

I just ewaste mine.. not worth the effort to stop people getting at my old ... err ... media content ...

 

[Flintstone]

I sold my 7 yr old 2tb samsung drives (30+ drives) the past months at almost the same price that I paid at the time (before all the prices went skyhigh). No problems with them at all. Cheap storage...

 

[whitey]

Those 60-90U stg chassis guys should take me up on super cheap spinners right? HA!

 

[T_Minus]

Target practice.

I have some old <400GB waiting, and maybe an IDE I found hahaha, and then recycle/trash them.

 

[BlueFox]

Sell them? I've been able to sell tons of smaller ones on Craigslist for at least $10-20 a piece depending on size (nothing over 1TB). Got ~$750 for a case of 20 x 2TB Hitachis on eBay too.

 

[QueBall]

I have 2 stacks. Drives that have been erased already and ones I will erase.
Dead ones usually get a "physical"
DBAN on a laptop with some USB adapters. Usually this is done during some long boring task on a weekend like updating servers remotely and likely involves binging some bad netflix series on the extra monitor.

Once erased I generally stack them up and eventually deliver them to the electronics recycling. Occasionally I get anxious about getting rid of drives not because of data but because there was that one time 10 years ago when I was able to use some old drive I was keeping to fix an old legacy system and saved a client from basically going out of business because they couldn't afford to replace their million dollar old machine that is no longer supported. (These usually fall into the category of lathes and similar industrial systems where the tool is fine but the computer bit gets obsolete)

Since moving to a new house with far less storage space I have learned to stop hoarding so much old junk. It's less likely to stick around for years and years now. Also finding the more "modern" obsolete junk is a lot more tolerant of replacements with newer technology that stuff built in the 90's where you had a smaller window of compatibility. Just a result of the maturing industry.

 

[Diavuno]

I dod wipe them.
Some I'll open up to show clients or to pull out the magnets.

After that if I still have them I'll give them to my Ecycle guy. He normally charges $3 per drive (he folds them in half on a giant press) no charge if I buy a server at the same time.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk

 

[T_Minus]

Ooooh @Diavuno crushing them in a press... that sounds fun That may be a scrap metal project with my son... a hard drive adapter inthe press, ha ha

 

[Diavuno]

Ooooh @Diavuno crushing them in a press... that sounds fun That may be a scrap metal project with my son... a hard drive adapter inthe press, ha ha

Yup!

They have 3 electric powered hydrologic bearing presses, a V groove in the bottom (pipe tool rotated 90°)
The press has the mating half.

30 seconds to fold it up and reload!

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk

 

[Fritz]

I take them apart and play with the magnets.

 

[b3nz0n8]

Source: How-to: Thermite hard drive destruction

 

[Tom5051]

Take them down to the range for target practice.

 

[Kybber]

Open at least one of them up together with your kids. If you don't have kids, invite the neighbor's. After you have finished your show-and-tell and enlightened their minds with your technological prowess, let them use the platters as frisbees, shuriken or similar.

 

[Drewy]

Always destroy, never sell/lend/give away old disks. The older models with glass platters were much easier to destroy
Only ever leave me when they're dead.

 

[vl1969]

I run my drives into the ground. only get rid of them when they dead.
usually just take them apart, and play with platters and magnets than break them to pieces

 

[whitey]

Why do I get a sick satisfaction watching these videos???