I don't remember ssd being a thing even then the fastest drives were those sata raptors or if you were still haning on to scsi u320 controlers with 10k drives. I ran a pair of 10k scsi drives in a raid 0 for performance up until 2012 or so. win vista needed that Intel Turbo Memory if anyone can remember that.

I have a 400gb Hitachi ATA-133 drive with a couple broken IDE pins. It had 11 reallocated sectors and that went down to 3 the last time I did a low level format on it, as well as like 6 years worth of power on hours. It's loud, it's slow, but man it just wont die.

My softmodded PS2 has my largest IDE drive - it's got a 500 GB WD IDE drive in there. Pretty sure I still have at least one 160GB IDE drive and maybe a 250?

Half-Saint wrote on 2019-09-07, 16:40:

I have around 50 old IDE hard drives. They range from 100MB to 320GB in size, most of them are 40GB or smaller. What do I do with them? I will never use so many hard drives and I don't even know when the number got so crazy. Is there a market for used IDE hard drives? I sure don't want to throw them away.

Sell them on ebay if they are good working ones.

AlexZ wrote on 2021-08-18, 17:18:

Large IDE drives are very rare. Most people here had just 80GB and then switched to SATA. It's very rare to find a 250GB or more. But those 80GB are not bad at all as they work in PIII rigs, also in DOS 7.1.

Good point ! Think the big change really came about the 160GB size. My largest IDE are a few 250Gb and one 320GB and know they went to 500GB but they are not that common but can still be found 😀

I've got at least 1 of the 500GB IDE drives. I also have more than a full filing cabinet drawer full of HDDs.

I still have a couple of those IDE drive to SATA port adapters that are branded Abit. They came bundled with motherboards when SATA first came out.

I have at least 100 posibly 150 IDE/PATA of various sizes ...all used of course.
Some of them are really old ..a 100mb Conner amongst them.
The older ones still appear fully funcional for the most part.
The sizes and manufacture that appeared the most unreliable to me were 160gb Samsung ...and 200 gb seagate.
but if memory serves those mostly were harvested from PVR units...so had a hard life.
rgds
VS

I have two 250 Gb drives somewhere, which were obtained as a bonus for other more valuable stuff. Don't see any practical reason to use them even in PS2 or Xbox, because you know - SATA-IDE adapters.

My largest IDE drives are one Seagate 750GB, one WD 500GB, and one Seagate 250GB.
For me the most valuable of these is the WD 500GB because I ended up hardly using it, so it should have basically a full life left in it still. I don't think it even reached 1K hours yet.

The 750GB was a lot more heavily used. I got it for TV recording in my nForce2 system back then. I read about problems people had with SATA on that board so I deliberately opted for the IDE version. By that time nForce2 was outdated and most newer boards probably had native SATA. The nForce2 doesn't, it's boards only get SATA by using an external PCI controller chip. IDE is integrated in the southbridge so it's preferable on those boards.

When I disconnected the 750GB IDE I think (distant memory) Windows had logged a few errors. I never observed a problem, but technically it might be starting to go a little funny.

I've thought the Seagate 750GB would be ideal to plug into my PS2 console, but that drive draws a lot of power. It got a lot of bad reviews on Newegg/etc. I think the reason mine lasted was because my PC case kept it cool with a fan.
The PS2 hard drive cage is a joke - it puts the hard drive in a box with a few tiny slits on one side (and not the other). I don't think a higher powered drive like that 750GB would live long unless I did some ugly hack to blow air through there. And then I wonder about the PS2's power supply.
Anyway, the PS2 has a 128/137GB limitation, there's some workaround but I don't know what's involved. I just stuck a 120GB in mine.
I think a SATA-IDE adapter would require using a 2.5" drive to make room for the adapter. But that's probably a good idea anyway since it also mitigates the heat/power issue.

As for SATA, I'm starting to sense that I'll be left with several extraneous 2TB drives soon. My file server holds video files on several drives using SnapRAID, but the 2TB drives are starting to get pushed out in favor of bigger ones.

GigAHerZ wrote on 2019-09-07, 23:10:

Yep, i'm soon going to have the same problem...

Every time i manage to get my hands on another old pc, first thing is that i remove the hdd. I just don't have the heart to run those mechanical devices just so i could joke around with the old machines... (I replace them with CF card) And so i have also a small collection of 100MB - 10GB drives... Don't really know, what should i eventually do with them.

i still use them. Why? really love it with the system is complete with a mechanical hard drive. I dont bother when do go death.. The data on it is no critical every day use.

If you own some early IDE drives (1986-89) you might help by contributing research to http://www.os2museum.com/wp/identify-ancient-drive/

TBH My collection has in it a good few ..broken hard drives with either bad blocks and sectors ...bad motors or bad drive boards.
..but I keep 'em anyway for spares or just pure sentiment.
As I've said already ..the really old ones tend to be still useable...but this makes sense as there would have less to fail...and on the whole built to a higher standard.
Here are a few pix of some of my IDE collection...at least the ones not already in use and in various built PCs...which obviously I wont be taking apart just to grab a photo.
As a rough estimate I also have 1 MFM drive.
100+3.5" PATA/IDE
50 >100 3.5" SATA
20 > SCSI 50/68 pin
200 mixed IDE and SATA 2.5" laptop drives ..some working ...many not.

This thread is still alive? Amazing! I now have even more hard drives than before 🤣 😀

Aim to make pillow hard drive fort.

Hmmph, this shows up again when I'm in the middle of a "so many drives but not the right one" crisis.... okay I've got ONE, but I need it for something else.

But anyway, does anyone know any good hard disk cloning software? I plug this one I want to keep into one IDE channel, run the cloning software, and when it's done, the end of the second IDE cable is still empty 🙁 ... ... 😉

Personally I like HDclone by Miray..
I've used it to clone Compact flash ..sata ..ide etc
It creates RAW drive images which you can then store or write back to a 2nd drive ..ie clone.
It's great for IDE ..but not had much success with early drives...where declared geometry is needed..eg ..my old conner 100mb etc..
Does software exist that can do this ?
rgds
VS

Half-Saint wrote on 2021-08-24, 17:45:

This thread is still alive? Amazing! I now have even more hard drives than before 🤣 😀

..at the risk of repeating what I said earlier in the thread..
Is there such a thing as 'too many old hard drives'...🤣

Vipersan wrote on 2021-08-24, 19:15:

Personally I like HDclone by Miray.. I've used it to clone Compact flash ..sata ..ide etc It creates RAW drive images which you […]
Show full quote

Personally I like HDclone by Miray..
I've used it to clone Compact flash ..sata ..ide etc
It creates RAW drive images which you can then store or write back to a 2nd drive ..ie clone.
It's great for IDE ..but not had much success with early drives...where declared geometry is needed..eg ..my old conner 100mb etc..
Does software exist that can do this ?
rgds
VS

Good old "Ghost" for DOS.