Hard drives used to be the backbone of our PC storage for decades, but these bulky drives have been replaced by superior SSDs. But what can you do with old mechanical drives you may have lying around somewhere, collecting dust? Instead of throwing them out or keeping them locked away, doing absolutely nothing, we're all about repurposing old hardware here at XDA to give devices a new lease of life, and this can be achieved with your tried and tested HDDs!

Whether your old drive still functions or is completely out, you can provide a new purpose and extend its life by a few more years, or maybe even indefinitely. Here are some ways to go about it.

Expand PC or console capacities

You can never have enough

One of the easiest ways to keep your trusty ol' hard drive in commission is to dust it off and use it as secondary storage. Primary systems or even a games console can take some additional capacity to store all sorts of data. Considering the size of modern games, photos, videos, movies, creative assets, and more, having additional storage space never hurts. And if you can install your old hard drive to get 1TB or 2TB of free storage instead of buying a new drive, it's a win for you as well as the environment.

Similarly, your console can always do with an additional drive as external storage, especially if its internal storage is not large enough. Of course, on both your desktop and console, the old hard drive might be much slower compared to the existing storage, but you can still make use of the extra storage space, especially on your desktop for storing lesser-used files, games, media, and more. And once everything is loaded into memory, you should be good to go.

Use it as archival storage

HDDs for the win

One thing that still works in favor of hard drives is the more affordable cost per GB compared to SSDs, especially when considering larger-capacity drives. If you are a creative professional working with massive 4K assets or just someone who doesn't want to pay for tons of cloud storage anymore, your old hard drive can become a repository for all your files that you want to keep safe for a long time.

It's why we always recommend using hard drives inside network-attached storage (NAS) enclosures or home lab servers. They're a great, inexpensive way for keeping data safe over longer periods of time when running 24/7, and can take an absolute beating when it comes to writing data. In contrast to SSDs, which can suffer from data loss if kept powered off for longer periods, hard drives can serve as reliable archival storage.

Provided you are not using drives that have already developed hardware faults, they can prove highly cost-effective when you find yourself frequently running out of storage. Users who need to keep dozens of drives as cold storage (unplugged, to be used later) will find HDDs a far better option than SSDs, both from a financial and reliability standpoint.

Create a DIY external drive

Portability plus cheap storage

It's also possible to make the old hard drive function as a more versatile device by fashioning an external drive out of it. Depending on the form factor — 2.5 or 3.5-inch — a dedicated power adapter may not be required for a DIY external drive. A simple hard drive enclosure bought from Amazon can transform your old internal HDD into a portable external drive that can serve many other purposes in addition to secondary storage.

Before you decide to repurpose your old hard drive into a makeshift external drive, check it for hardware faults and find the right enclosure for it. All that remains is to insert it into the enclosure, format it using your desired filesystem, and offload some of the data from your main PC that you only need occasionally. Note that 2.5-inch hard drives can usually draw all their power from the PC's USB port, but a 3.5-inch drive might need an additional power adapter connected to the enclosure.

One thing to note with mechanical drives, both 2.5 and 3.5-inch units, is that they really don't enjoy being moved around while running. Specifically, if you do plan to repurpose older drives, remember to keep them level and still while operating, else you'll risk damaging internal components, cause unnecessary wear, or even lose data altogether.

Build your own NAS or media server

It's never too late to build one

If you have been dreaming of finally building your own NAS, a functioning hard drive is just the thing to get you started. You don't even need to buy an off-the-shelf NAS box or use your old PC if you don't want to. Just get yourself a cheap Raspberry Pi, connect your old hard drive, install Raspberry Pi OS Lite (or your OS of choice), and get your NAS online. You'll need more than one drive for a NAS, so try to find all the old drives you can.

You might just want to stream your local media collection to your TV. A DIY media server is all you need to get that done, and a single old hard drive, if working well, is the most important component for building one. Of course, you will still need either a spare PC or an SBC to actually create a media server, but the latter is hardly an expensive affair. Once up and running, you can use that old drive as a base for your budding new home lab.

Everything can be self-hosted, including all your purchased media files (a la Netflix and Spotify), your own Microsoft 365 platform, and even having a safe place to back up all your family's mobile devices.

Salvage dead hard drives for useful internals

Bring your own scrapyard

But what if the drive is simply far too gone? Dead hard drives won't be suitable for any of the projects above, but they can still be useful for their internals. Hard drives have various smaller components inside that can be extremely handy for more than a few crafty initiatives. The circular platter, neodymium magnets, motor, and PCB of your old hard drive can serve as the foundation for some cool upcycling projects.

Removing the screws from the top housing of your old hard drive will expose the platter and magnets inside it, which are the two things featured in most DIY projects. You can extract the platter from the drive and use it as a rearview mirror or just a plain old mirror. If you have multiple old drives, you can even create a hard drive platter wind chime by hanging the platters with strings tied to a ring mounted to the roof.

The neodymium magnets inside your dead drive are shockingly strong, and if you have enough of them, you can fashion a nifty knife block to hang on your kitchen wall. The magnets can easily handle the weight of your kitchen knives, successfully keeping them aloft without any hooks or other items. You can also create a personal mini-safe with your old drive by removing all the top screws but one, leaving the last one to serve as a hinge, then store cash or personal effects inside it. No one will suspect that an unremarkable old hard drive contains any valuables.

Or, if you're feeling really brave, you could even reuse parts from one drive for another.

You can always reuse or recycle old PC parts

It's often hard to keep old hardware in use once you upgrade to a newer machine, or the old components stop working. However, with some creativity and time, you can repurpose old PC parts, especially hard drives, into useful devices and tools. Besides using them for their intended purpose, you can also salvage internal components from dead drives and create geeky DIY contraptions.