Do you have an old or broken hard drive and are you going to throw it away? In this article we are going to give you some ideas to reuse your old hard drive so that, instead of throwing it away or having it forgotten in a drawer catching dust, you can give it a second life in ways that you cannot imagine.
For some of these ideas that we are going to propose next, you will need the hard disk to continue working, even if it is old, but for others you can reuse even a hard disk that has stopped working, although yes, you will need to be a little “handyman” to be able to disassemble it.
Reuse your disk as extra storage
This is the most obvious and obvious idea: if the hard drive is working, you can give it a second life as an external storage device, for example. For this you will have to buy an external casing that allows you to connect it via USB, and if the disk is 3.5 inches you must take into account that it will need additional power.
This is ideal if for example you have bought a laptop that came with a mechanical disk and you have installed an SSD, since you can use the hard disk that came – which we understand will be new and in perfect condition – for other purposes, in which case with a 2.5 ″ USB drive will have enough, with the advantage that in this case you do not need additional power.
On the other hand, if the hard disk works you can also integrate it into a NAS or DAS , to also have extra external storage that you can use on any PC and for any need.
Ideas for reusing a broken disc
We already enter a field only suitable for the most handyman, or for people who have some skill and time. You probably need some special tools that not everyone has at home, like small metric Torx and Philips screwdrivers, as each hard drive has a different locking system even though they are all alike. In any case, we are going to see what you can do with a hard disk that no longer works, but as we have warned before, this implies “gutting” it.
Magnetic utensil holder
Mechanical hard drives have powerful magnets inside, large and powerful enough to hold almost any type of utensil, be it screwdrivers, saws, or even kitchen knives.
To mount for example a holder for kitchen knives you will need a piece of wood. At the back you will only have to make some slits in the shape of the magnets, and hang it on the wall. Even with thick pieces of wood (2-3 cm thick) the magnet has enough strength to hold the knives.
Small mirror
The plates of the hard drives are very reflective, and if they are not scratched you can use them with small inverted mirrors (like the rear-view mirror of cars).
As a tip, you will be able to create an anchor right in the center hole and it will look pretty good. Given its size it can serve as a mirror to carry in your bag, or you could even hang it on the wall if you want.
Scare away birds and insects
Surely you have often seen CDs or DVDs hung with threads on the porches of the houses, and that is to serve to reflect the light and scare away insects and birds. Since hard drive platters are the same size and have the same properties, they can do exactly the same thing. In fact, if you put several record plates together, the wind will create a rather curious “symphony”.
Hidden safe
When you want to hide money or valuables at home, there are many options you have, but the one that usually has the best result is turning everyday objects into small safes. For this, the external casing of a hard disk can serve you perfectly, especially if you have it stored in a drawer along with other disks, since it will surely go unnoticed.
Obviously for this you will need to completely empty the interior and be left with only the external casing. Note that, up to here, we could do everything with a single hard drive (magnets, plates and casing), taking advantage of almost all its components.
