DVR boxes - Hard drives on the cheap (or maybe even free)!

[eightbit]

I don't think I ever mentioned this before, but for years I have been able to obtain 240GB, 320GB, 500GB and even 1TB SATA drives either for free or very cheaply by gutting them from abandoned DVR boxes. 

 

A few years ago a tenant in a place we were renting bailed on the landlord and left his boxes. The landlord tossed them all on the curb for garbage pickup. I took them in and gutted them for a handful of excellent and barely used hard drives (according to the SMART data). Since, I keep an eye out for people either tossing them or in the case of today I found one at Goodwill for $9.

 

320GB is not huge, but these drives are perfect for vintage builds. Just add a SATA to IDE adapter to them and you are golden. Or, just use them in other builds that have SATA. I popped this one in an AMD build from 2013 I had kicking around that needed a hard drive. The SMART data shows it was power cycled 46 times and only a few hundred MB written. I guess the owner never really used the DVR function

 

I found it amusing that the security screws on this box are the same as the screws used in SNES games carts. Thankfully I have those bits!