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Ask HN: What to do with old hard drives?
I've accumulated several old hard drives, either replacing with bigger capacity ones, or replacing ones that started showing SMART errors about potential data loss. Any suggestions for a creative uses, like building free public web server with caveat that data will be lost? And if I went with recycling, how to ensure that whole data is erased?
- PaulHoule 4y agoLaptop drives are flimsily constructed and can have the platters shattered and impossible to read with one hammer strike.
- h2odragon 4y agoPull it apart. pull the magnets for the numerous uses they have; and use the platters for windchimes. The head stack rides on an awesome bearing, too.
- beardyw 4y agoIf you've never done it before the magnets are really strong and are often the only thing holding the arm in place.
- giuliomagnifico 4y agoKeep a second or third backup. If you want to be sure of the erased data you can simply drill few holes in them. But it’s a very extreme procedure. A two/three pass of “erase all data” is okay. HDD are not SSD that keeps the data when not “write 0 to safe erase the SSD”