Question What to do with used HDDs?

[Midhun Kumar]

I have HDDs that I used before but are now lying idle. They work well now. What to do with them? Possible to sell them anywhere?

 

[USAFRet]

I have HDDs that I used before but are now lying idle. They work well now. What to do with them? Possible to sell them anywhere?

How old, and what capacity?

"work well" is subjective.

There is VERY little market for used drives.

 

[zinkles]

I have HDDs that I used before but are now lying idle. They work well now. What to do with them? Possible to sell them anywhere?

Yes you could sell them, but you should be careful as even after formatting them, data can be recovered from those drives.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes you could sell them, but you should be careful as even after formatting them, data can be recovered from those drives.

Unless you are the target of the NSA, that's an old wives tale.

Given a Full Format, no, you can't.

I tested exactly this a few months ago.
Full format in File Explorer.
3TB drive. 1.9TB data on it, of various files sizes and types.

After, a full forensic investigation with Autopsy.
Took 36 hours.
Result - 0 files recovered. Zero, none, nada.