Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What To Do With a Hundred Hard Drives?

Posted by Soulskill on from the build-a-hard-drive-cannon dept.

Makoto916 writes "In five years with my current employer as the IT administrator, I've amassed a sizable cabinet of discarded hard drives; just shy of 100, in fact. All of the drives range in size from 20GB up to 300GB. They've all been stored in anti-stat bags, and spot checks of even the oldest ones show that most of them still work. Individually, they're mostly useless for our line of work, which is digital video production. However, the collective storage potential is quite significant. They are of varying size and speed, but the one commonality is they're all IDE. What is the best way to approach connecting all of these devices and realizing their storage potential? On a budget, of course. Now, I'd never use such an array for critical data storage, but it certainly would be useful as a massive backup array to our existing SAN that does store critical data. I have several spare and functioning PCs, but not nearly enough to utilize their internal IDE controllers; even with multiple add-in controllers, it still wouldn't be enough. Not to mention the nightmare of managing a bunch of independent PCs. I've looked into ATA Over Ethernet and there's a lot of potential there, but current 15 to 20 bay AoE cabinets are expensive, and single device enclosures are so rare that they're also expensive. Are there any hardware hackers out there who have crafted their own home-brew AoE systems? Could they scale to 100 drives? Is there a better way?"

7 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Bunches of small drives by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I doubt its worth using a bunch of old smaller drives.

    between the power requirements and all the extra hardware needed to run them i would just sell them all on ebay and take the $ to buy a couple of huge drives, mirror and do iscsi with them.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Bunches of small drives by wtfispcloadletter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep, just not worth it. The magnets are worth more than the drives. Take 'em apart and sell or use the magnets. Destroy or recycle the rest of the drive.

  2. Play dominos by r_jensen11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Granted, you have a few less than others, but it's worth giving a shot

  3. Free Geek by paroneayea · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Would be a super generous donation, but if you honestly don't have a practical idea, perhaps donate to your local Free Geek chapter? Good drives at that size could help in the fight for bringing technology to those who couldn't afford it otherwise.

    --
    http://mediagoblin.org/
  4. Re:Thumper by fuzzix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A Thumper or Drivebox RAID system. Or you could turn 'em into Thom Yorke..
  5. Re:1 word: magnets by wagnerrp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even better, they're monopoles (Halbach Arrays). Build your own maglev toys.

  6. Re:Careful with the magnets by rubah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    since they're strong, they should donate them to the local university physics students so they can build their electric motors!

    I wish we would've had some nice hardcore magnets when that project came up!