What is a good use for a couple of old hard drives I have?

[Ajfer03]

So I recently went to GoodWill and purchased two 160GB HDDs and one 250GB HDD. Now, I bought them in case I needed them for a computer, but I'm not using them right now and if I need one, I probably won't use all three, any ideas as to what I can use them for?

[BC_Programmer]

I've found Hard Drives to be particularly well suited to storing data. You might use them for that.

[Ajfer03]

  Haha yes I know, now I see how silly my question sounds, however, what I mean is,  is there another use for them other than to just store files for myself on it?

[Allan]

Depending on the size, if you put self adhesive felt on top and bottom you can use them as coasters.

[DaveLembke]

You could RAID the two 160GB drives and have a fault tolerant storage area for 149GB I am guessing is what the 160GB's actually are. You could also short stroke one of them and use that short stroke partition for Virtual Memory space for Windows so that Windows isnt using the other drive in your system that may be fragmented for Paging. If you want to short stroke if you have say 4GB System RAM, then make a 8GB partition on the drive and point Windows to use this 8GB partition as the swap space for Virtual Memory, then make a partition for the rest of the space to store extra data there so if the 250GB drive is used which might be 237GB and you allocate 8GB to short stroking and then 229GB to extra storage space that can give you a performance benefit if your not running SSD's. If your running a SSD then the speed is all in the SSD.

I'd test the drives to make sure they are really healthy before using them as well to make sure your system wont BSOD on the short stroked virtual memory space due to a sick drive. Crystaldiskinfo can be used to look at the SMART data and see if they are flagged as troubled or not.

For short stroking the smaller the partition the better the performance however you want it to be 1.5x minimum of your RAM capacity and I'd suggest 2x your RAM capacity which will allow Windows to manage and expand and contract in swap space as needed without reaching a 1.5x ceiling.

For short stroking to work though the say 250GB drive needed to be removed of all partitions. Create that short stroke partition first as say 8GB if your have 4GB RAM and then create a partition after that for extra data storage. If you do it in reverse order then its not as good of performance because of where the data is on the platters is optimal at the start of the drive just past the MBR.

Before SSD's came along I use to short stroke for faster virtual memory performance. These days I have SSDs and so I havent short stroked in about 8 years.

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-short-stroke-your-hard-drive-for-optimal-speed-1598306074

The best performance is the second hard drive being used primarily just as swap space for virtual memory. If you add data that is accessed on the larger partition on this second drive and make this drive then working as swap space for virtual memory as well as reading of data elsewhere on the drive then you take away from the performance gain optimization. 

[patio]

I've found Hard Drives to be particularly well suited to storing data. You might use them for that.

Quote of the Month Winner ! !

Even though the Month isn't over...

[DaveLembke]

 

[BC_Programmer]

Well, for other uses, You could look into installing one of them into a PS2 if you have one. You could "make" some external drives via IDE enclosures.

You could use them with an existing system and use it to fiddle with a different OS on said system without wiping the current setup, which you can return to at any time.

[Mark.]

then there is other possibilities;
  -  home media server
  -  home file server
  -  RAID
  -  NAS box  -  PVR / DVR / CCTV recordings

but my personal favourite for old, useless drives is to pull them apart and remove the rare-earth magnet (usually neodymium) from the read/write arm assembly.
those bad boys themselves open up a lot of playtime options.
   

[DaveLembke]

those bad boys themselves open up a lot of playtime options.

And blood blisters from pinched fingers too hahaha  i got bit by them slamming together once and OUCH!! 

[Mark.]

oh yeah, if not the physical pain, it's the shock of them inexplicitly snapping together or onto some surface that gets the blood pumping.
we've all been there at some stage!

another good use of old hardware is to give it to the kids and say "hey, pull this apart for me".
hand-eye co-ordination, dexterity, tool names and usage, hours of 'child minding', away from the TV, they actually interact with the Olds, win-win.

[DaveLembke]

another good use of old hardware is to give it to the kids and say "hey, pull this apart for me"

Definitely good to keep some kids occupied that are interested in seeing the internal workings of a drive... however, I've been cut by the razer sharp metal of the arms inside a drive before. They are made of stamped metal punched out of a sheet and they aren't worked to get rid of sharp edge because the drive manufacturers dont plan on people being inside them with fingers.  . The ends of these arms have the magnetic read/write head attached to them. So if your going to give it to kids to explore, you might want to just tell them not to touch the arm inside or at least be careful not to get cut.

I've gotten cut far more times with computer cases, removing a knock out to add a card or drive in a drive bay or removing a card and sliding finger on inside edge of the slot and SLICE! 

[Geek-9pm]

Door stop.