Question: For my PC build I have a 500GB NVMe SSD, but I also am planning to add extra storage in the form of hard drives. This storage will rarely be written to/read from and is just for backing up pictures and videos. I wouldn’t mind paying fifty bucks for a 2tb HDD, but I was wondering if it would be safe to use the laptop hard drives that I have from old laptops in a RAID array or as standalone drives. The hard drives are about 5 years old. Would this be a reliable option for storing pictures a few years? Or is it much better reliability-wise to buy a new HDD?
Answer:As far as chances for failure go, a new drive is always better than a used one. But there are many drives that run for many years without issues, really up to you. If it was me, I’d run a full scan with a test utility like Seatools on the drives, if they pass with no errors I’d use them. I also would not bother with RAID unless it’s RAID 1 or 5 for backups.