Maybe sell in sets? Like selling sets of 5 of the same capacity? Perhaps that would make them worthwhile to sell.

I never ever sell my drives. I don't like the fact that deleted data is in fact not deleted.
When drives are defunct, I just destroy the platters and keep the magnets.

Keep them if you can. The earliest ide drives are worth something. Mfm and rll drives already have a nice price tag
.

brostenen wrote:

I never ever sell my drives. I don't like the fact that deleted data is in fact not deleted.
When drives are defunct, I just destroy the platters and keep the magnets.

Eraser
DBAN

Also,
DiskCryptor

(You really should use DiskCryptor or some other form of WDE.)

In working condition, I think old hard drives would carry significant value for people who want a completely period correct build. This would be especially true for drives from a time where people expect them to make a certain noise, and also where there are compatibility issues involved. However, they won't shoot up in value until we reach a point where working drives of their age become extremely hard to find.

brostenen wrote:

I never ever sell my drives. I don't like the fact that deleted data is in fact not deleted.
When drives are defunct, I just destroy the platters and keep the magnets.

If you just delete/format at the filesystem level, then this is true, because it leaves a lot of data behind. But if you completely zero fill the drive, then the data is truly and completely gone. Nobody can flip the bits back(*), they can only read what didn't get wiped.

I like to wipe drives using the linux/unix command 'dd', but if you're not familiar with that environment, then there's also utilities like the ones KT7AGuy linked which will do this. I tried DBAN some years ago, but it was slow, which is why I prefer dd.

SSDs are different, but those have a function in firmware to securely wipe themselves. I don't know the best way to invoke that.

* = Some hard drive wiping utilities get carried away with fancy random number schemes and multiple passes. This is meant to thwart the theory of somebody finding trace magnetic signatures of past data on the drive platter. This slows them down and it's really tinfoil hat stuff. A simple zero fill will make the data unrecoverable to anyone on this planet. But if there's a major government agency desperately after you, maybe the multi-pass schemes are worth the time. 😀

I would keep them all, they will be getting harder to find as time go on because of scrappers. I am currently stocking up on SCSI, IDE, and laptop drives. They don't really take up that much space and they stack well in a box.

Any hard drive that is below 4.3GB is getting more difficult to find in working condition, especially early-on 80MB to 540MB IDE drives. I have a couple I keep in storage just in case my 386 and 486 drives die.

You can usually use a CF-IDE adapter without much fuss, but I still like the sound of the "whirllll...click click click".

Maybe sell in sets? Like selling sets of 5 of the same capacity? Perhaps that would make them worthwhile to sell.

If you plan to sell them, this is the best option.

I never ever sell my drives. I don't like the fact that deleted data is in fact not deleted.
When drives are defunct, I just destroy the platters and keep the magnets.

Paranoid much? Its very unlikely that anyone would go through the trouble of trying to recover your data.
And old drives are likely to contain stuff to old to be any concern anyway. If you don't want them to be recoverable under basically any circumstance,
you can do a multi-pass low level erase.

I've seen Quantum Maverick 540A go for 50€ in eBay auction. But this is an extreme as usually they go for much less.

I only keep smaller then a few GB. But I like Quantums, so I have them up to 40GB.

Yes I am paranoid. Who would not be in a country were everything about you can be tracked and read by a single login. Call it the information society. 😉 😁
That aside. I think that all old drives are of no use. So many alternative solutions anyway.

Whenever I buy a HD from ebay I hope it isn't deleted and is from some old BBS with tons of programs. I think there are a ton of shareware and registered shareware utilities, games, and other things that have gone missing over time.

Best secure eraser is http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/secure-erase.html on drives large / recent enough to support ATA secure erase.

The old ""gutmann method" of 35 patterns tailored to RLL and MFM encodings is irrelevant to the high density schemes of more modern drives. Even a single full overwrite pass puts the data beyond the reach of software recovery.
Where the drives own utilities are available, a data destructive test is another way to erase all data, and verify the drive at the same time.

It's handy to have some "sacrificial" drives if you suspect a problem - I still have a pair of ST351A/X drives - though I originally used them as "bootable objects" for testing OpenDOS etc.

Half-Saint wrote:

What's your opinion?

Well, it's not like they're difficult to store. They also have about the worst failure rate for a major PC component, so as time goes on value ought to increase among vintage enthusiasts. Meanwhile they're handy to have for adding value to any other kit you're selling or trading.

IMHO test and wipe them with badblocks. The default destructive wipe does four bit-flipping passes on the sectors with these patterns 10101010 01010101 11111111 00000000.

For why more extensive wiping is theatre,
https://security.web.cern.ch/security/rules/i … -drive-data.pdf

For why you might not want a drive filled with random data, section 5.2 here,
https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/Fre … ecurity_Aspects

I've tossed pretty much everything apart from MFM/RLL stuff, the 40MB IDE miniscribe and the 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot.

I'm not worried about the data on these old drives as none of them contain any interesting data. Just having so much stuff around can be a burden.. here's a list of what I've got:
- IBM Deskstar IC35L040AVVN07-0 40GB
- WD Caviar 21600 1.6GB
- Seagate Medalist ST31720A 1.7GB
- Quantum ProDrive LPS 105AT 105MB
- Fujitsu M1636TAU 1.28GB
- Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB
- Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB
- ExcelStor Ganymede 80GB
- WD Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB
- WD Caviar WD1200 120GB
- Samsung SV200IH 20GB
- IBM DHEA-36481 6.4GB
- Fujitsu M1636TAU 1.28GB
- Fujitsu MPB3032AT 3.24GB
- Fujitsu MPE3064AT 6.48GB
- WD Caviar 34300 4.3GB
- WD Caviar 22500 2.5GB
- Seagate ST351A/X 40MB
- Conner CFS540A 540MB
- Maxtor Fireball 3 40GB
- WD Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB
- Fujitsu MPC3064AT 6.48GB
- Quantum Trailblazer 840AT 840MB
- Seagate Barracuda 200GB
- Seagate Barracuda 120GB
- Seagate Medalist ST34321A 4.3GB
- WD Caviar SE WD2000 200GB
- Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB
- Seagate ST380020A 80GB
- WD Caviar SE WD2500JB 250GB
- WD Blue WD3200AAJB 320GB
- WD Caviar WD800 80GB
- Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB
- WD Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB
- IBM Deskstar 41GB
- Seagate Medalist ST31276A 1.28GB

And that's not counting the hard drives that are currently inside my retro builds and various SATA drives that I own.

Interesting. I have quite a few of these myself ^^

I agree with what others have said Half-Saint, keep them if you can. If you must sell, then at least keep the ones below 4GB in size; they are indeed getting harder to find.

Half-Saint wrote:

- IBM Deskstar IC35L040AVVN07-0 40GB

Isn't that the infamous "DeathStar"? I had one of those and it died a couple of years after I bought it exactly like it was supposed to. 😢

The infamous 75GXP drives had DTLA model codes. Had a couple of those go bang on me, and replaced them with 60GXPs, which seemed to be fine.

devius wrote:

Half-Saint wrote:

- IBM Deskstar IC35L040AVVN07-0 40GB

Isn't that the infamous "DeathStar"? I had one of those and it died a couple of years after I bought it exactly like it was supposed to. 😢

I have one...in working condition!
Obviously I don't use it for anything though.