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What To Do With Old USB Keys, Low-Capacity Hard Drives?
MessedRocker writes "I have at least a few USB flash drives around that I haven't needed since I got my 16GB flash drive, a 40GB external hard drive which I haven't needed since I upgraded to 500GB, and a couple of SATA hard drives I have pulled out of laptops which are either as large or smaller than the one I have in my laptop now. Furthermore, I don't really know anyone who needs any hard drives or flash drives. What should I do with my small, obsolete storage devices?"
Do what I did to my old printer that kept telling me to "PC load letter".
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Load them up with porn and give them to random people anonymously. They will thank you for it!
Monstar L
This should about double the /. server storage space.
You'll need to throw in ISA SATA and USB cards though.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Mail them to me.
Take them to a recycling center, so they can be loaded onto container ships and sent to China so they can have their precious metals reclaimed over a charcoal fire.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Explosives + Old Hardware = Good Times!
You say you want a revolution....
We've seen the awesomeness of floppy drive RAID. Memstick RAID will blow that away!
Whats better than whipping it out and playing some starcraft?
Whipping it out is always good, Starcraft's just a bonus.
Will they blend?!
Blend it!
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
You forgot to tell him to stand in front of it to make sure it cooks properly.
Hard drives are a lot like hot dogs, you don't wanna cook them without your face right there next to the glass.
You can't take the sky from me.
Go a little farther: collect strange images from the web (craption, photoshop contests, orsm, etc), put them on and sprinkle with false user info before you 'lose' it; with a possible "If found please contact..." with almost valid info refering to slashdot, facebook or other social sites. Use existing usernames of friends (?) as references. Watch as the fun unfolds on the net.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Definitely. Since we've Slashdotted them, I suppose they do need some new hardware.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
s/([a-z])([A-Z])/${1}_$2/g
Real geeks don't strip spaces - they use underscores :P
(Unless you're a JavaScript programmer in which case I'm terribly sorry...)
My first programming classes were supervised (not taught) by the guy that ran the Windows computer lab. He was Mac-only, and hadn't written a line of code in his life. Basically, he handed the 5 of us in the class books and said "Just show me something cool at the end of the day every day, and I'll pass you".
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Build yourself a HERF gun (from the old microwave you need to recycle) and use the drives to test EMP resistance measures.
Go back in time to 1960 and sell them for several hundred million each.
whoever modded parent "informative" needs a serious head check
I had another sig before, but this one is better
Why not load up photos of the family's last vacation and take it with to the next Thanksgiving dinner? I'm sure everyone will be glad to see a slide show.
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
Really.
You could, for example, hold one in your hand and imagine a Beowulf cluster of 'these'.
FreeBSD bounties
Well, when I was in high school (this was 1987 mind you), I took the only offered computer programming course at my school. We got to code up a payroll program in COBOL. Really prepared me for life as a modern day programmer.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Line up all your current hard drives and USB drives, and force them to watch as your slowly destroy one of the obsolete drives. Then tell them this is what will happen to them if they EVER give you write errors or get bad sectors!
Fear can be a powerful weapon!
No Sig for you!
This is what I did with a leftover USB key:
http://blog.boogly.net/2008/10/diy-cow-usb-flash-drive/
Also, load them with a copy of Wikipedia that includes all the historical events and innovations and discoveries of the last 50 years, wait till they find out how to read that, and watch how you modified the course of history, you know, for teh lulz.
You just got troll'd!
However, be advised that this may affect the resale value.
Even worse, they could randomly come together and create something worse like kidde porn or Windows ME.
A friend of mine loves old harddrives. They have a lot of super heavyduty magnets in them. To my knowledge he just dismantles the drive and then sticks'm to his fridge but ... either way, ubermagnets are fun!
I'm reasonably sure that if they have a serious interest in the contents of your hard drive, the NSA will be able to decrypt it by using a $5 wrench and some duct tape to persuade you to help them.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Open 40 MB harddisk
Carefully take out read/write head
File off some material off said read/write head
Carefully insert read/write head
Close 1 TB harddisk
Profit