What to do with about 10 old HD with valuable data?

[hajime]

Hello, in all these years, I have about 10 old hard drives (mostly below 500GB) being unused for years. Some of them are quite big. Some are from old PCs while others are backup drives for older Mac. They do store valuable data which I "believe" have also stored in 1T-3T hard drive I bought within the past three years.

What suggestion do you have if I don't want to keep so many drives? Should I buy a big HD of 4-5T and copy everything from these old drives (some are duplicates) and then throw them away? I am concerned that if I buy a big drive and it fails later, I lose everything. In case of buying, shall I buy a network drive? How do I destroy the HD so that nobody can retrieve the data?

 

[LiveM]

All hard drives fail eventually, unless you never use them.

YES, get a big drive to consolidate everything. Copy everything, then get Gemini II duplicate finder to find all the duplicates.

Then get another big drive to use as a backup. Use Time Machine to back it up. Then take your backup drive and keep it at another location, only bringing it home to update your backup.

Then, to destroy your old drives, use software to securely erase them, then whack them on the ground while they are running. This will scratch the disks and remder them unreadable.

4TB is a bit on the small side. I use 8TB drives. You can't use more than one drive for a Time Machine save and the cost per TB gets less and less the bigger you go.

 

[hajime]

Will it be dangerous if I apply, say 12V on the - side and 0V on the + side? Will they explode?

 

[mobilehaathi]

I'd consolidate, in fact I need to do just that...

Then erase/destroy and recycle them; don't just toss them in the trash.

 

[LiveM]

Will it be dangerous if I apply, say 12V on the - side and 0V on the + side? Will they explode?

That won't make the disk unreadable. My daughter pulling a drive onto the floor while it was reading was enough to foil a recovery company I sent it to.

 

[Mousse]

If you positively, absolutely want it so not even the NSA/FBI/CIA/NBC can recover the data off those HD, you need to destroy the platters inside the HD. Some folks drill holes through the HD. I prefer to open up the case, remove and hammer the platters to smithereens.

 

[dontwalkhand]

This is the fun part after you copy them to a larger drive. Get creative, have fun. I love smashing things with hammers, while they are on, it makes it more fun, and you get to hear funny noises. Or toss them in an industrial shredder or trash compactor and watch it get crushed or shredded.