Storage forum: After upgrading your hard drives, do you reuse your old ones?

First, I use laptops. I don't even own a desktop PC.

Second, I just don't have that much data to store. About the only data I keep are photos. I burn them to a DVD. They are much easier to store and use.

I could use an old hard drive as an external drive but I don't even use the portable external hard drive I already have.

I do not replace a drive until it quits. And hopefully I have recently backed it up! Boo-rah!

- Yes = Sure why not, it works and there's always some PC that needs a different and BETTER drive.

- Sometimes = If the need is there, why not and it's a known working drive, "good to go".

- It depends = It always depends on need, cost, and availability not to mention its already in hand.

- Never = Can't say never unless its too old or weak on capacity. I make it a point to toss 20gb or less. However, if its broken, rarely does it make past the recycle bin. But, its not like I do this every day or even monthly, maybe 3-4 a yr..

Heck, there are 3Tb drives out there. If I have a 500Gb and I used it for 2yrs+, then looking at an affordable 3Tb is inviting. It's been my experience that a good drive will last at least 5yrs. or more. However, if a drive pukes at 3yrs. or less, its not worthwhile to save other than data and hope the warranty is still there.

tada -----Willy

Several years ago, I saw it mathematically demonstrated that the drive
had to written over for at least 3 times to ensure that nobody could
retrieve the data.

Now, since some cd's are 3 dimensional, the 3 time write over supposedly
doesn't work.

At a Business show a few months ago, some guys were selling a
"Drive Shredder" that actually chops up the drive into tiny metal and
plastic pieces that resembles the way a paper shredder works.

How important is your data?

How paranoid are you?

Do you think a hammer and saw could accomplish the same thing?

Once replaced the 4GB hard drive with a 32, kept the old one just the way it came out; the self-installed OS did miss some tricks which the manufacturer had included, and I was glad to swap back to the old drive for OS, swapfile and most used software, installed remaining software and copied all files to the large drive.

Regularly sort saved items and transfer all I want to keep to external HD, thus built-in HD remains spacious enough to hold installed software and current files. And this way there is an external back-up in case notebook goes AWOL.

Re-using the old HD is likely more an enthusiast thing, where people replace a 500GB drive with a 750, or a 5400RPM with 7200. As an aside, for me, speed really increased when adding RAM, not when upgrading the HD.

Also ensure better cooling of notebook - i.e. not using it on a warm lap as that way the thermal envelope is less likely to be reached - meaning the cpu and HD slow down when reaching around 50C to avoid overheating, on my desk the surrounds are 20C, on my lap 35C. It's the main cause of slow computer when room temperature reaches 30C. But I digress.