HDD Conundrum

[At_Op45]

Hi there, I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this but, these part do come from two old early 2011 Core i5 13," and one mid-2012 Core i5 13" MacBook Pro.

I currently own three, 2.5" 500GB HDD drives that have the same speed of 5400 RPM. I don't really know what to do with them. They are somewhat old, used, and arguably lack enough storage for DIY projects like a NAS or raid. I'd greatly appreciate any recommendations on how to best use them. Thank you.

 

[Juicy Box]

You can make a bunch of partitions on one of them and a bootable MacOS installer for each major version.

This is nice if you want to go back to an older OS on one of your Macs or maybe a future Mac.

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Make them redundant Time Machines.

 

[Fishrrman]

Do you download any movies?
Use one of the drives to store them.

Set up another as either:
- a bootable cloned backup of your internal drive
or
- an independently bootable-to-the-finder emergency drive (can be very handy at times)

Use the third to keep files that are "expendable" -- such as extra copies of apps, copies of OS installers, etc.

You don't need to put these drives into enclosures.
Instead, use a cheap device like this to access all three:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-...478&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=sabremt+usb3+to+ssd

 

[sosumi99]

Given their age, I wouldn’t trust them as backup disks either. Maybe in RAID, but that’s about it.

 

[IngerMan]

I dug out an older 2011 MBP 500 GB HD that was hardly used for I replaced it with a SDD years back. Im using it now in the below enclosure for a bootable disk I created for my iMac via Carbon Copy Cloner. I also have a USB-C enclosure I use with a Crucial 275 GB SSD to CCC bootable drive for my laptop.

 

[At_Op45]

I dug out an older 2011 MBP 500 GB HD that was hardly used for I replaced it with a SDD years back. Im using it now in the below enclosure for a bootable disk I created for my iMac via Carbon Copy Cloner. I also have a USB-C enclosure I use with a Crucial 275 GB SSD to CCC bootable drive for my laptop.

View attachment 789671

Thank you very much for the enclosure recommendation! By chance, may recommend any enclosures that can maintain multiple HDDs? Thank you again.

 

[Juicy Box]

Thank you very much for the enclosure recommendation! By chance, may recommend any enclosures that can maintain multiple HDDs? Thank you again.

This is the one I have, or one very similar to it.

It crashed once back in 2015, causing me to lose all my data, but I think this had more to do with an issue I was having on my iMac it was connected to. I think the a corrupted MacOS screwed up the indexing on the external drive.

I stop using it for two years, and about a year ago started using it again. No problems in the past year.

It is really fast with the two 3TB drive I have in it, just as fast as my Fusion Drive, and maybe faster.
[doublepost=1538079191][/doublepost]

This is the one I have, or one very similar to it.

It crashed once back in 2015, causing me to lose all my data, but I think this had more to do with an issue I was having on my iMac it was connected to. I think the a corrupted MacOS screwed up the indexing on the external drive.

I stop using it for two years, and about a year ago started using it again. No problems in the past year.

It is really fast with the two 3TB drive I have in it, just as fast as my Fusion Drive, and maybe faster.

BTW, I use it as a HW RAID0.

 

[Fishrrman]

The OP wrote:
"Thank you very much for the enclosure recommendation! By chance, may recommend any enclosures that can maintain multiple HDDs? Thank you again."

You don't need "enclosures".

Once again, I recommend this:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-...478&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=sabremt+usb3+to+ssd

This adapter will take the place of THREE enclosures...

 

[At_Op45]

The OP wrote:
"Thank you very much for the enclosure recommendation! By chance, may recommend any enclosures that can maintain multiple HDDs? Thank you again."

You don't need "enclosures".

Once again, I recommend this:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-...478&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=sabremt+usb3+to+ssd

This adapter will take the place of THREE enclosures...

Thank you. Sorry, I missed your response earlier.