Antistatic bag, and stored in a box on the in my office.
Just away from direct sunlight.

Safest place is inside a well-built machine, used regularly and powered by a good-quality PSU on a surge protector 😎
Things in cardboard boxes tend to go bad, last casualty of this for me was a Voodoo3 PCI.
Hard drives eventually sieze up if left unused.

Anti-static or zip-lock bags inside of a few plastic storage drawers.

Anti-static.... hmm

To prevent sensitive parts from electric shock - i agree. But there are capacitors (either electrolytic or tantal) mounted on every single circuit board i know that are getting dry or whatever.
A few weeks ago i had anoter bad experience: I turned on a 286 Laptop from Acer (Model 970L from the 90s) and right away it smelled burned. When i opened the case there was one of those yellow tantal capacitors blown up into pieces. I thought those won't do this, while electrolytic ones will (damn). That was an empiric knowledge enhancement i would prefer to miss if someone would have asked.

Slot CPUs are in a plastic drawer, mostly without any shielding, I just don't worry much about those, they are almost immune to death. If it's something particularly valued then I'd bag it though.
"Normal" pin packaged CPUs are on CPU trays, which sit stacked on a wood shelf, no shielding there either but I guess the trays might protect them, I have no idea.
Motherboards are mostly in shielded bags, but I don't have enough to bag all of them, so they get preferential treatment accordingly. They're lined up in a cardboard box. I've had some turn up dead, I don't know if it had anything to do with static or not.
Most expansion cards are not in shielded bags, but a fair number of video cards are. A couple video cards are in small boxes of their own. Most cards (whether bagged or not) are in a plastic bin, except for a few sound cards which are kept in shielded bags between layers of antistatic bubble wrap in a luxuriously sized cardboard box. I can't do that for everything, but those are the cards I really don't want to die.
Most of the better hard drives are installed in a case somewhere, or else bagged. There's a little bit of foam storage but mostly they get piled up wherever.

Note that metallic shielded bags are better than the pink antistatic bags (which don't generate static but don't really block it either). Bags that are beaten up aren't very good either. There was an interesting demo of this contained in an Apple 1985 video that was posted on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNb3TUNf0A
I generally don't worry much about static, in fact I'm kind of sloppy about it usually, and I've only ever had 1 hardware loss (a motherboard) that I suspected ESD to have anything to do with. But if something is more valuable to me then I'll try to take it more seriously. I don't have bags for every little thing but I just prioritize.

I agree with bjt that keeping things powered is good for them. Especially boards with tantalum capacitors, which might be nicknamed "tantrum" capacitors for their habit of exploding when awoken from too long of a slumber. I have one machine that's filled with tantalum caps all over the motherboard. It's been in disuse for a few years now, so I try to remember to power it up once in a while. I also reinstalled it's original, very unusual video card so that it can benefit from the power cycles.

Try to keep optical discs that you care about in a dark and cool place. Sunlight kills them, and heat isn't good for them either.

shamino wrote:

Try to keep optical discs that you care about in a dark and cool place. Sunlight kills them, and heat isn't good for them either.

Agree on that, as the killers after scratches and oxidization. Those two are way more effective killers than heat and sunlight.
That is why an HIFI collector showed me those cd's made from gold, and some of the wery first "normal" cd's ever produced.
The normal ones had rings of green stuff on the edges, and could not be played, and those made from gold were 100% good.
I had a backup of old school files, burnt on cheap media. They oxydated after 6 years.
My Kodak gold backups of school files and other personal stuff from around 2000/01 are in perfect working order.

All the video, sound, etc. cards are just in a big pile inside a cardboard box, and all the hard drives and RAM chips too. Computers are either on the floor, under a bed or in a closet. This applies to all hardware, regardles of their rarity. 😦

Cardboard boxes here too. CPU's have their pins pushed into foam or polystyrene before being taped into place, otherwise they are stored in trays. In all honesty, I prefer to use my hardware as much as possible, so when I have a surplus I nominate machines to be part of the rotation whereby I swap parts out every few weeks with other stuff in the boxes.

I store most of my old PC parts in cardboard boxes in my garage under an old plastic cover which I got from a mattress I bought. This to prevent a heap of dust from settling on top of each box.
The more valuable electronic parts I store in antistatic bags and/or within old motherboard boxes (for extra protection).
The air inside my garage is fairly dry and not very humid (fortunately, so is our climate here). I'm hoping this will prolong the life span of the parts but, I'm not an expert on this.
My logic just tells me an electronic component is probably better off in a dry place then in a very wet and humid place. However, I agree that bombarding your electronic components with high doses of UV rays (sunlight) is probably also not a good idea.
I thought at one stage to also put a couple of these small silicone bags (that you sometimes get with items you buy) in some of my motherboard boxes so that, if the air is a bit humid, it will at least keep it dry inside the box.

But, in the end all of these electronic components only have a certain life span and will eventually die on you. Some of these do actually last for many years (most likely due to the higher quality components used) and others do not.
Just for interest sake:
I still have an old vacuum tube amplifier that my grandfather bought in the 1960's and the last time I fired it up, it was still working like a charm. I'm planning on "reviving" it if I can find a nice corner in my home for it. Can then maybe listen to some old records again 🤣
I started up an old AMD386SXL-25 motherboard with it's onboard CPU about a month ago and it was still working like a charm (despite only being able to recognise a maximum hard drive size of about 212 MB) 😀

Silica bags? I put those everywhere, usually even put them in working machines in the plastic front panel, behind the 3.5" drive bays or squeezed in by the PSU.

I store my cards in anti static bags and place them in plastic bins (with lids) in case of a leak or flood. It also stops small animals and bugs from getting inside if stored in a basement or attic.

Guess I have it pretty neat and good. No high or low air humidity in general.
No flodding, no dust storms, only a couple of spiders if any to be found.
Not really hot nor too cold. Too much oceans surrounding the country,
to make a real heat wave nor make a deep winther.
Have never seen a mouse or a rat at any of the places I have lived.
(And I have no pets)

No earth quakes (underground is mostly limestone and clay).
No power surges, and no power loss other than me delipertly shorting out 220volts
when putting up a lamp and not shutting down the power.
Man... I tell you it's much fun to get a 220volt shock 😁 😁

Yeah... My hardware is as safe as I can wish for. 😀

Boards:
The ones that are not in use (or broken) are somewhere in the shelf and on the wall; the ones that are good in card boxes / original boxes and/or antistatic bags.

Computers / Notebooks are in the shelf / under the table...

That's the spirit! Just piles of everything! I've never had any problems with my old HW or something breaking and I still have my SB PRO 2 from -93 and a few HDD's that all work fine despite being tossed around numerous times. Worst thing you can do is handle your HW with kid gloves. I guarantee you end up breaking something. 😈

sf78 wrote:

That's the spirit! Just piles of everything! I've never had any problems with my old HW or something breaking and I still have my SB PRO 2 from -93 and a few HDD's that all work fine despite being tossed around numerous times. Worst thing you can do is handle your HW with kid gloves. I guarantee you end up breaking something. 😈

Soundcards or videocards from the 90s gave little problems until now; drives and motherboards are faulty.

Is there a significant difference between hardware for home use and one that is certified for military use in terms of the print board itself ? (except the capacitors, transistors, diodes et cetera)

popper wrote:

When i opened the case there was one of those yellow tantal capacitors blown up into pieces. I thought those won't do this, while electrolytic ones will (damn).

Actually tantalum caps are way more prone to spectacular failure than electrolytic. Electrolytic usually fail gradually and give out signs that they're failing. Tantalum caps just spontaneously blow up. Even worse, they aren't rated for very high voltages, and despite that it is still possible that they will fail with something as little as half the rated voltage. Still, you should be able to replace that blown tantalum cap with an electrolytic about 5 times the original value.

devius wrote:

popper wrote:

When i opened the case there was one of those yellow tantal capacitors blown up into pieces. I thought those won't do this, while electrolytic ones will (damn).

Actually tantalum caps are way more prone to spectacular failure than electrolytic. Electrolytic usually fail gradually and give out signs that they're failing. Tantalum caps just spontaneously blow up. Even worse, they aren't rated for very high voltages, and despite that it is still possible that they will fail with something as little as half the rated voltage. Still, you should be able to replace that blown tantalum cap with an electrolytic about 5 times the original value.

Thanks for reply (that gives hope); i already tried to replace it with an electrolytic one with the same specs and it won't run. You say it should be five time the value - i will try it!

If you already tried with one with similar specs and it didn't work it's not a good sign. It should still work, but could be more unstable, or something like that. I think the reason for the increased value is to get a cap with a similar ESR value as the tantalum one, which is generally important for digital circuits.

I store items in the original box or in anti static bags. When I had a larger collection I used a couple of IKEA Pax closets. Right now I am down to 1 IKEA Pax closet and still reducing. I place desktop PCs vertically on a shelf. I fit 5 on each shelf. The cabinets are still there. I sold the tables last weekend. I am probably moving south pretty soon. I sold the Digital Venturis 575 & the generic desktop. I recycled the IBM PS/1 (parts except MOBO were given to someone). I will move the IBM ValuePoint and Magnavox down south. I gave the CRTs to a friend and donated the LCDs.

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