Packing them separately is best -- in ESD safe bags, sealed with desiccant. Keep in a climate controlled area, and avoid stacking unless you use layers of foam to prevent card sag/bending.

I've always wrapped my parts in foil and stacked vertical in cardboard boxes (batteries removed from motherboards) , would like to use ESD bags but they are far too expensive to be worth using on old PC hardware which mostly has minimum value so far, foil seems fine.

ESD bags are dirt cheap -- anywhere from $0.20 each to $0.80 each.

Here's a good starter kit -- less than $14 for 55 bags of various sizes: https://www.amazon.com/Rancco-Resealable-Anti … /dp/B0828W6HB7/

I used to take photos and write long lists of my hardware but I quickly stopped after my inventory started changing too much. I'll only make a list of items I'm collecting like CPU-series.

I use ESD bags and foam lined boxes like this one for expansion cards:

About 2 or 3 cards fit in one box.

For motherboards, generally ESD bags and shoe-boxes with some leftover polystyrene.

And whenever I can, I use the original boxes.

wiretap wrote on 2021-04-22, 12:33:

ESD bags are dirt cheap -- anywhere from $0.20 each to $0.80 each.

Here's a good starter kit -- less than $14 for 55 bags of various sizes: https://www.amazon.com/Rancco-Resealable-Anti … /dp/B0828W6HB7/

they're even cheaper than that, ESD bags for cards are like $0.10 each and for motherboards if you find a good deal it can be around that or $0.20 too. I bought a lot of like 250 400x300 ESD bags for ~$0.10 a piece once.

Of course, places like Aliexpress also sell them for that cheap. I usually try to buy the sealable zip-loc style, which are slightly more in cost than the open ended bags.

$13.99 + $19.04 shipping. You can get 10 boards for that price here and it's just packaging material. Cardboard boxes are free in convenience stores and you can take as many as you want in every size imaginable. Just like pizza boxes for motherboards.

Obviously you wouldn't want to pay that much in shipping. You'd need to find a regional seller.

whilst all these steps are good, especially if you have valued stuff, its worth remembering that before you got the hardware it had probably done duty in various temperatures, borderline dangerous humidity and all kinds. It's surprisingly hardy stuff and if it has worked in the PC where its all set up, provided you give it a good check and then keep the PC itself in a 'cool dry' place you don't need to disassemble it (unless, as mentioned, there is very valued stuff in there you want to be doubly sure of protecting)

not suggesting a blasé approach, just need to balance hours spend carefully packing stuff to hours spend doing something else

I store mine like this and never had a problem so far:

(yes, carefully arranged so that no components could rip each other off the boards)

One box for small graphics cards, one for network cards, one for misc ISA cards, one for misc PCI cards, ... never had issues with ESD or anything, but I try to always touch an outlet before taking a card.

And I guess whether you want to keep a PC ready-to-go is your choice. If you have an installed OS with all the drivers then it makes sense to keep everything together, plus the PC case keeps away most bad things.
However for true ready-to-go you'll have to exchange all coin batteries every couple of years so not sure how far you want to take it 😁

If by storing and saving you mean a long term preservation, nothing really helps. I am collecting vintage hardware and from experience learned that the long term preservation is a lost cause: the electrolytic capacitors leak (the tantalum are the hardest to diagnose, unless they explode); the flash firmware suffers a bit rot (some of my hard drives are OK mechanically, but the capacity is no longer recognized due to a corrupt firmware); the LCD-s suffer from a vinegar syndrome; the plastic gears in some floppy and CD drives deteriorate and they no longer work (unless you use a 3d-printer to print replacement gears), etc. The lifetime of computer hardware seems to be about 40 years and if you are lucky maybe 50.

wiretap wrote on 2021-04-22, 13:24:

Of course, places like Aliexpress also sell them for that cheap. I usually try to buy the sealable zip-loc style, which are slightly more in cost than the open ended bags.

no need for aliexpress, the friendly electronics retailer next door sells them for $10 for 100, or just use digikey or the like... at digikey I even got them for less than $0.10 a piece including taxes... just got a bunch of them to get my order up to the minimum order value when ordering some parts I needed.

just don't go looking around on amazon and the like expecting good prices for them.

techgeek wrote on 2021-04-22, 16:02:

If by storing and saving you mean a long term preservation, nothing really helps. I am collecting vintage hardware and from experience learned that the long term preservation is a lost cause: the electrolytic capacitors leak (the tantalum are the hardest to diagnose, unless they explode); the flash firmware suffers a bit rot (some of my hard drives are OK mechanically, but the capacity is no longer recognized due to a corrupt firmware); the LCD-s suffer from a vinegar syndrome; the plastic gears in some floppy and CD drives deteriorate and they no longer work (unless you use a 3d-printer to print replacement gears), etc. The lifetime of computer hardware seems to be about 40 years and if you are lucky maybe 50.

Not everything age the same though.
90's electrolytic caps now leak in a destructive way. Whereas bad caps from the 2000's just pop and prevent the system from starting, but doesn't destroy the rest of the motherboard.

We can overcome bit rot with community projects of ROM dumping, IDing and sharing like the one I started 😀

For LCDs though you might be right (maybe the most popular computers will get drop-in replacements over the years ? Someone retrofitted such screen in an amstrad portable PC in such a way that the repair is also an improvement over the original screen. This is not quite preservation but just upgrade/repair though).