Mainly just cables , I've got a box full of ide ribbons and another box full of miscellaneous cables like serial and printer port ones.

Its vlear from the replies that almost nobody is keeping the cases. And this is already becoming a problem for the pre-ATX form factor. I would guess there are 10 times more cpu's than motherboards and 10 times more boards than cases ...

Newly made Retro styled AT/Baby AT Case

Sadly it starts further up the chain than collectors. Most of the motherboards I presently have were sourced either individually or from scrap lots since the cases were thrown away by recyclers long before the parts were put up for sale.
Those AT cases are definitely getting rare now. I've got a few which I'm now paying to store and previously they could fit in my large flat, but those were lucky finds and mostly collection only - some of the high quality early desktop ATX cases weigh a ton. I'm now regrettably having to look at moving those on to other owners now that the storage cost is high.

It's funny isn't it? The CPU and memory seem to be the things taken out the most when computers got recycled so they're plentiful while the banal parts became rare 😀

What do I stockpile? Optical drives and floppy drives from before 2000-ish primarily along with LS120 superdrives. I mean I have tons of other stuff all neatly categorised but the period correct media readers and cases are of particular interest to me.
Also CompactFlash cards are something I keep more than a few of, they're just too useful and adaptable to any form factor. And often available in smaller sizes that work well with machines that can't handle >504MB, >2GB, >8GB drive sizes.

edit: huh, should've read the first post better - for free stuff I keep Fluid Dynamic Bearing IDE hard drives where I find them, along with floppy drives and cables. Some of the laptop type floppy drives in Dell Optiplex machines being chucked out have been very useful for my SFF MATX builds.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-01-22, 12:03:

Holy fudge! Does it shred the HDD in total, or must the plates be removed and fed separately?

I work in nuclear and the government makes the whole disk get shredded. They are worried about someone getting the plutonium. They take this level of physical security to disks but get 13 findings of non-conformance (for perspective this is high) with cyber security requirements. I'm sure it will all be fine.

demiurge wrote on 2024-01-23, 00:01:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-01-22, 12:03:

Holy fudge! Does it shred the HDD in total, or must the plates be removed and fed separately?

I work in nuclear and the government makes the whole disk get shredded. They are worried about someone getting the plutonium. They take this level of physical security to disks but get 13 findings of non-conformance (for perspective this is high) with cyber security requirements. I'm sure it will all be fine.

Oh, the irony 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-01-23, 06:03:

demiurge wrote on 2024-01-23, 00:01:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-01-22, 12:03:

Holy fudge! Does it shred the HDD in total, or must the plates be removed and fed separately?

I work in nuclear and the government makes the whole disk get shredded. They are worried about someone getting the plutonium. They take this level of physical security to disks but get 13 findings of non-conformance (for perspective this is high) with cyber security requirements. I'm sure it will all be fine.

Oh, the irony 😀

Yup dont you love it.

Hospitals and Doctors are worse for patient medical information security.

I work in IT as well. Most everything is too new to be of any interest any longer.
But very occasionally an old beige beast will come through. Anything older than P4 or Athlon 64 or so is worth a look.
Anything with PCIe is new enough to not be of any interest too me, so this rarely happens.
Also like most people I'm seriously at my limit of what I can really keep around handy. I could of course stock pile on old towers in my shed or garage, but really what's the point?
I've already gotten about 6-7 completed towers and about 10 retro laptops that are all working, plus boxes of ram, video cards. I am a little short on ISA sound cards but I've still got enough to fill all the machines that I don't have time to use.....

I stockpile beige ATX cases, ATX desktop format cases of any color, and I amassed quite a number of single board Teknor computers a while back, 386/486/pentium MMX/P3 pretty much in bulk. I also will retain any expansion cards I come across since they take up very little space overall.

The SBC setups satisfy my itch for vintage computing anymore, and the convenience of being able to use most any ATX power supply and case for the 486-class systems is really nice.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-23, 12:16:

Hospitals and Doctors are worse for patient medical information security.

Don't ask for government forensic.
Even the shredding process has to be watched by officers.

Disruptor wrote on 2024-01-23, 22:41:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-01-23, 12:16:

Hospitals and Doctors are worse for patient medical information security.

Don't ask for government forensic.
Even the shredding process has to be watched by officers.

Thats a whole different level though, if Hospitals and Doctors are your average walk in facility then Forensic is somewhere near hell and I would expect their security be exceptionally annoying. (I would expect the same from High security military facilities)

If there is something that I may remotely need in the future, it comes home with me. Today I scrounged up a couple of small Sandisk 8gb SSD cards that came out of some scrapped HP printers and an 8gb M.2 out of a scrapped mini PC. I could of got more of the M.2 ones but didnt have a small enough screwdriver on me to get the cases open, so guess those will go to salvage since I dont know when ill get back to them

At the moment I'm still pretty much stockpiling everything. Highest on my list are quality PSU's, since there is never a time I don't need a good PSU.

I occasionally sell off parts I'm pretty sure I'm never going to use. But I'm still hanging on to a fair bit of gear.

You never know when it'll come in handy. 😁

Yep ! Anything I think I may need or someone could use:) In my area nearly everything vintage/pre-2005+/- in the thrift stores has dried up. Last year made a mistake and did not buy a few more vintage PSU because I have enough working ones but now wish I would have, recapping a psu is fairly easy, so sending one to a friend or vogons member in need (to recap as they all probably needed it) did not enter my mind at the time....

I collect Abit parts: mainly motherboards but also video cards, uguru panels and special parts like AirPace music. Also I collect period correct components from the "Abit era". I transformed the basement into a storage unit - kind of - and as of 2024 I collected most - over 90% - of the parts the I am interested in. Now all I need is that time for some projects I have imagined. As for everything from 2009 onward - I am simply not interested; for me the excitement and the joy is playing with those parts.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2024-01-23, 18:18:

Also like most people I'm seriously at my limit of what I can really keep around handy. I could of course stock pile on old towers in my shed or garage, but really what's the point?
I've already gotten about 6-7 completed towers and about 10 retro laptops that are all working, plus boxes of ram, video cards. I am a little short on ISA sound cards but I've still got enough to fill all the machines that I don't have time to use.....

Yeah, same here. I come at vintage computers from the hardware angle, and its a bit of a tool obsession. At some point you have covered all mayor era's that matter to you, and after that you're just duplicating. I now try to avoid adopting new systems or other large items, but occasionally snatch up small things that can bring a new angle to hardware I already own.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2024-01-23, 18:18:

I could of course stock pile on old towers in my shed or garage, but really what's the point?

I've made the 'mistake' of collecting old pc towers while they were free/cheap thinking these will either be given dedicated roles / setups and also become sources of spares and new builds

the result years later is that most are fine, sitting there doing nothing and not being needed for spares. my rate of old pc usage combined with luck or whatever is such that rarely do components ever fail. I've used a couple of old PSUs, a few HDD and some other small components over years to replace failed parts (and sometimes they came from scrapped PCs that were beyond use anyway)

in addition there are various sound and graphics cards, ram, hdd and ssd and a fair amount of motherboards and some new PSUs

unless all the PCs in use start failing suddenly (which is possible i guess as they age...) i wont ever need to use what i have as spares and I'm finding less and less reason to create a new PC from parts too

not that i regret having the stuff, but i see it all with a bit of a shrug of accepting that i probably overestimated how much would be good to have - that and a bordering on hoarding compulsion to 'save' things from waste

What's the difference between collecting and stockpiling? I've accumulated 8 silver brushed aluminium Lian Li cases from the early 2000s, along with various matching Lian Li accessories. It all started because I had a PC-70 in 2001. I enjoy the hunt, especially finding bargains, and then cleaning/restoring them. I've got retro PCs built and running in 7 of them at the moment. Spare parts are hard to find now, as are cases in good condition, so making sure I have 'enough' is definitely part of it. I probably crossed that line 4 or 5 cases ago!

But no regrets. Friends think I'm losing it though 😅

I stockpile video cards and sound cards because they are the parts most likely to not work with some other piece of software or hardware. I can just swap them out with a different one.

red staplers

Nothing annoys me more than having a machine clog up my workbench for a week because I'm waiting on a small part to finish the refurb process.

I hoard everything. But especially fans, cables/adapters, and components.

I have two giant bins of new fans of every size. 2-wire, 3-wire, 4-wire, 5V, 12V, different RPMs, etc. I encounter the random noisy fan in many machines.

I also have several giant bins of every cable you can imagine. Especially power cable adapters and extensions.

I also stockpile components for repairs. I buy the giant assortments of resistors/caps/diodes/transistors from ali express. Including those binders that have 1000s of different SMD resistors and caps in them.

I don't want to wait a week and pay $7 shipping over two bulging caps on a random board/power supply.