What To Do With a Hundred Hard Drives?

Makoto916 writes "In five years with my current employer as the IT administrator, I've amassed a sizable cabinet of discarded hard drives; just shy of 100, in fact. All of the drives range in size from 20GB up to 300GB. They've all been stored in anti-stat bags, and spot checks of even the oldest ones show that most of them still work. Individually, they're mostly useless for our line of work, which is digital video production. However, the collective storage potential is quite significant. They are of varying size and speed, but the one commonality is they're all IDE. What is the best way to approach connecting all of these devices and realizing their storage potential? On a budget, of course. Now, I'd never use such an array for critical data storage, but it certainly would be useful as a massive backup array to our existing SAN that does store critical data. I have several spare and functioning PCs, but not nearly enough to utilize their internal IDE controllers; even with multiple add-in controllers, it still wouldn't be enough. Not to mention the nightmare of managing a bunch of independent PCs. I've looked into ATA Over Ethernet and there's a lot of potential there, but current 15 to 20 bay AoE cabinets are expensive, and single device enclosures are so rare that they're also expensive. Are there any hardware hackers out there who have crafted their own home-brew AoE systems? Could they scale to 100 drives? Is there a better way?"

hard diskus throw

[mytrip]

spin around in a circle and see who can throw them the greatest distance

Re:Bunches of small drives

[ElboRuum]

But d0000000d, yer missing the point. He wants to do something 1337 hAxXoRz with all these drives. I mean, really, selling them on eBay would be what the n0rmLz would do.

Not technically legal, but

[cunina]

Pry them open, remove those awesomely strong magnets, and stick them all over some douchebag's Hummer.

Here's a thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

What To Do With a Hundred [old] Hard Drives?

Get ahold of a .50 cal Barret and use them for target practice while calmly singing:

A hundred old hard drives stood up on a wall!
A hundred old drives on a wall!
BANG!
Ninety-nine old hard drives....

There is huge potential...

[MiniMike]

I think this is how Google started. Throw in some other random hardware and wait for the VC to come rolling in!

Re:Not technically legal, but

[denzacar]

Why would you give away perfectly good magnets to a douchebag when you can just as well key his hummer?

Re:100 ata hard drives? forget going green

[Anonymous Coward]

i can't imagine the power to run 100 hard drives.

Imagine no more!

power_to_run_100_hard_drives = 100 * power_to_run_1_hard_drive

Re:Bunches of small drives

[grommit]

Who has time to do that on almost 100 drives?

People that don't actually stare at the screen the entire time a disk is being wiped.

Google Do

[mrslacker]

> Now, I'd never use such an array for critical data storage,

Why not - Google do for GFS. Indeed, I worked for a search engine company and wrote something that had significant similarities to GFS - that is, a distributed high-performance redundant file system. Of course, you still need a machine for every 4 drives, but it can be done. Still requires manual maintenance however - the chance of individual drive failure if you run lots of them becomes quite high (your data is safe due to redundancy). Look around the net for references to GFS and Google data centers.

Re:Thumper

[zap0d]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90jOYSfqG9I [youtube.com]

Re:Not technically legal, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Make it a true geeks trick. Put the magnets on the inside of the fender spelling out "Very Small Penis". Then shake some iron filings over it. It'll keep trying to reform the words as he wipes it off and each day when you walk by it just sprinkle some more filings over the spot to keep the joke going. See how long it takes him to figure out they are on the inside or he sells the Hummer. If you can get inside the Hummer you could also stick a fist full inside the drivers seat cushion so they demagnetize his credit cards. Once again the gift that keeps on giving as it keeps demagnetizing each replacement set of cards.....In short magnets are useful for tormenting yuppies.

Re:2 Words...

[uniquename72]

Porn backup.

Dirty Pics and Vids

[WamBam]

Lord of the Rings cosplay pron. If you haven't seen 'Shire Backdoor Freaks', you don't know what you're missing!

Re:Bunches of small drives

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the sledge hammer method myself. Hit it until it sounds like a maraca when you shake it.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta!

Wipe and donate or destroy and have fun

[davidwr]

Two solution:

* Wipe the drives then donate them to charity. Plan on a few hours per 10 GB for a good wipe.

* Physically destroy the drive then have fun with the pieces. Unless you are going to destroy the platters completely I recommend at least a 1-pass 0-overwrite.

Ways to have fun physically destroying the drive:

* Heat: Thermite never looked so cool!
* Chemistry: What happens when iron mixes with NODON'TDOTHATYOU'LLBLOWITUP
* Physics: Hey kids, let's see what sandpaper does to metal!

As for the pieces, you can do arts and crafts, have cow-chipping, er, I mean drive-tossing contests, use them as props in the next company improvised-comedy day, or whatever.

When you are done, you can sell the metal for scrap.

Re:Not technically legal, but

[cunina]

I stand humbled by your brilliance. If there were a Nobel Prize for malicious pranks, it would be yours.

Re:Bunches of small drives

[koafc]

Why, an intern of course!

Re:Bunches of small drives

[dickens]

Will they blend?

Re:Bunches of small drives

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, at least it's not like the Windows 98 defrag utility, where you could stare for hours until you realized you've been doing nothing but staring at the screen the whole time.

Time well wasted, I guess...

Get a few discarded PSUs too, and...

[Gnavpot]

...turn the lot into a bulky and noisy 1 kW room heater. Remember to have an air gap between all drives to allow for air circulation.

1 kW may not be enough to keep you warm during winter, but it may help you survive if every other heat source fails.

Re:2 Words...

[ksd1337]

Now you can install Vista and actually run it.

Re:Not technically legal, but

[denzacar]

Hey... at least it will be off the street for a while.
Just imagine all the atmosphere you could save by also slashing his tires?
Breaking windows and windshield? Or by cutting his breaks?

Ah... screw all that.
Just wait for him to show up and club him to death.

Now... A wooden bat or one made out of aluminum? Which one is more environment friendly?
Yes. A tree did die to make that wooden bat, but it takes a shitload of power to make that aluminum bat.
Ah fuck it. Just get a large rock and crack his skull with it. Rocks are environment friendly.

What were we talkin' about again?

Re:1 word: magnets

[Iron Condor]

Impossible.

Just because you don't grasp physics doesn't make it go away.

Re:2 Words...

[iron-kurton]

Are you crazy?? You need to dedicate at least two, redundant backups, and off-site tape storage for that...

That's like putting all your savings under a mattress -- you won't need to use it until one day, you get really desperate, but realize it's all gone

Re:Bunches of small drives

[Kral_Blbec]

I think the sledge would end up taking longer. This is slashdot, he would need a breather every 15 seconds.

Use them to keep your users in line

[Kwesadilo]

Fill them with contraband media of various types and give them out to your users (and lusers). You could systematize it. If someone goes six months without "breaking" their computer by changing the settings, not liking it, and forgetting how to change them back, that person might get a 4-gig full of random music that you pulled off of Gnutella (or whatever). If a user goes a year without unintentionally creating a security risk, he gets 50 GB of unsorted porn. For the god of a man who has gone his entire career without a trouble ticket and is miraculously using ten-year-old hardware with no failures, you could have a 300 GB drive with all of the best video games, modern and classic.

And for the jackass who wants a new monitor because he changed the display resolution, tries out script-kiddie hacking tutorials on his coworkers, constantly demands faster equipment for him to do nothing with, looks at thumb drives he found in the parking lot, and gives up his password for a candy bar, you could stealthily replace his hard drive with a very small one containing Windows ME.

Re:Bunches of small drives

[Atario]

Or he could go the lazy way: take them down to your local computer mega-store and look for the DriveStar [coinstar.com] machine. Dump them in, the machine counts the space, and gives you back a few large-capacity drives (minus 8% for their profit, of course).

Re:Thumper

[Ihmhi]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of sectors suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Re:1 word: magnets

[Irvan]

"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me" lol

Re:Bunches of small drives

[Fred_A]

I use the sledge hammer method myself. Hit it until it sounds like a maraca when you shake it.

Seller shipped broken disk that sounded like a maraca when shaken. Would not buy again.

Re:Bunches of small drives

[fireboy1919]

I would second that, except that instead of that, you should pass it out to friends. In fact, I suggest putting them all on a big shelf on your wall.

You can have friends come over, and starting with 100 harddrives, just take one down, pass it around, and before too long you'll have 99 harddrives on the wall.

Why does this sound familiar? Hmm...

Re:Careful with the magnets

[ConceptJunkie]

Or if he's lucky, he'll get super powers. It's gotta happen eventually, right?

Re:1 word: magnets

[a_nonamiss]

Sure I do. It's sitting in my closet on top of my copy of Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:2 Words...

[Mr2cents]

You might also have difficulties with the length of time that the female portion of these drives lasts if you are constantly changing the males.

You could call an escort and ask her.