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What To Do With Old USB Keys, Low-Capacity Hard Drives?

Posted by timothy on from the send-it-to-timothy-no-really dept.

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?"

7 of 546 comments (clear)

  1. Starcraft on a stick. by Overkill+Nbuta · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.yellowchrome.org/1com/galaxytribune/sos.html

    Whats better than whipping it out and playing some starcraft?

  2. Re:Chuck'em out by BPPG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't just chuck them. Look for a high-school that has a proper computer engineering program, and drop them off there. Whether you give them to the teachers or the students directly, they'll love you for it.

    I remember building and disassembling many a computer in my class before I was able to install windows 95 (and subsequently, starcraft) on them.

    --
    What's the value of information that you don't know?
  3. Re:ebay maybe? by plover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You could ebay them, if your time is worth nothing. To prep them, you'd have to mount them on a machine and securely wipe them (on a windows box download sdelete for free from sysinternals.) Use the -z option to wipe free space (critical for cleaning flash drives.)

    Old drives are not as energy efficient as modern drives, so they cost more to spin -- a RAID would just be an expensive storage container. So unless you have a need for old, small drives (say an old, small machine) the safest advice would be to destroy them.

    I like playing with neodymium magnets, so I take my drives apart and harvest them. Bending and flexing the platters will render them unreadable by almost anyone but the NSA, so unless you're protecting treasonable secrets, it's probably not worth the effort to do much more damage than that. (Be careful, glass platters don't flex - they shatter.) If you are that paranoid, heating them beyond their Curie point will absolutely destroy any stored information.

    --
    John
  4. one word by NudeAvenger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ART!!!

    --
    for(b=(a=0)+1;;b+=(a+=b))print(a+"\n"+b+"\n");
  5. Re:Chuck'em out by yashachan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wait, high schools have computer engineering programs?! My high school seemed to be interested in finding the least qualified teacher possible for our computer-related classes, even though I found a professor from a prestigious university who was willing to teach the computer science classes. So not fair. :(

  6. Part and donate.. by chaboud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hard drives have strong (and small) magnets in them which are fun to play with, useful on your fridge, useful in woodshops (hanging tools), and probably useful just about anywhere.

    Little flash drives, even 8MB ones, can be useful for students and library users. Donate those puppies, please.

  7. Super strong fridge magnets by mrops · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have taken apart many 2 to 10 gigers, those magnets are STRONG.

    Stick them on the fridge ask someone to get one off and give it to you. Its fun trying to see them try.

    http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/images/hard-drive-magnet.jpg