Question I have 15 250GB HDD's, what should I do with them?

[RagingNuns]

My office is getting rid of a bunch of old HDD's that are all 250GB each. Specifically, these ones: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822148699.

I'm wondering if it is worth doing anything with them.

My first thought is external HDD's or putting a couple together in a RAID, but they are just so small...

For the same price for a 4 bay enclosure with only 1TB of storage, I could just buy a 4TB HDD. :/

Any other thoughts?

 

[digitalgriffin]

Drives have a finite lifespan. If you were to use them, I would do a RAID 6 on a NAS, which on most systems would allow up to 8 data drives + 2 parity checks. So 8 * 250 = 2 TB. That isn't anything to sneeze at for something like a Steam game drive. Also run a SMART test on each drive and look for errors that indicate near end of life span. (Seagate's SeaTools to be precise: https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/)

Problem is the RAID 6 enclosure for 10 drives is more expensive than the drives. So I agree with you. It likely isn't worth it, even as a DAS.

 

[Gam3r01]

Depending on how old the drives are, I would pass.
However, people seem to buy them for 10 bucks a pop on ebay.

 

[RagingNuns]

Thank you both. I had a feeling that would be the answer. $10 a pop on Ebay sounds like it would be the best bet, but not really worth my time.

 

[JLat51]

Post them on facebook, or other local buying guides where one doesn't have to have the hassle of shipping. 10$x15 is 150$ that you didn't have before. Or keep one or two incase you or a family member is in a bind and need a harddrive over the weekend as one failed.

 

[Fernando558]

or you can sell them to your local pawn shop.