It’s time to upgrade your hard drive. Perhaps you are simply renovating your system with the latest high-performance SSD, or maybe your old hard drive has finally reached the end of its lifespan. Before you toss that drive in the trash, consider your options. From recycling, repurposing, or a unique and functional piece of modern office art, there’s always a use for a hard drive.
If your hard drive still has life left in it, there are some fantastic options for repurposing it to expand the storage features for your workstation. The first thing you will need is a 0GB external enclosures such as the 2.5” On-The-Go Pro or Elite Pro Mini, or for multiple drives the ThunderBay 4 mini. For 3.5” drives, excellent options include the OWC Elite Pro or the 0GB NewerTech miniStack, among other OWC USB enclosures.
Once your drive is securely housed externally and your new SSD or HDD is installed in your computer you can proceed with a variety of uses for your new storage solution including the following:
- Use it as an additional backup drive for important files
- Utilize the drive as a media library for games, videos, images and music libraries and more
- Install a different operating system on it to run comparisons side by side with your existing OS
- Install in a PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 for extra storage (no USB enclosure needed in this instance)
- Install in an old computer and set it up for remote access
These are only a few of the many fantastic uses you can find for your old hard drive. If you don’t have a need for any of the above, you can always share with someone in need! And if the drive is no longer functional, you also have the option of taking it to a recycling program.
Have repurposing ideas of your own for your old hard drives? We would love to hear about them in the comments section!
