A Reddit user discovers a curious treasure while rummaging through electronic waste. Suddenly, six old SSDs are in his possession, and he immediately knows how he wants to use them.
How did the find happen? In his post on Reddit, a user reports on an unusual experience during so-called dumpster diving. This refers to searching through garbage bins, usually for electronic waste or discarded hardware. It was during this that he stumbled upon a special treasure: instead of defective parts, he pulled out six SSDs from the container.
These are old Samsung models, each with 1 TB of storage. Together they provided 6 TB, a stroke of luck that some can only dream of. The user did not leave the drives behind; instead, he took them home to give them a second life and already had a clear idea of how he wants to use them.
Curious finds of storage devices happen not only in the trash; in Germany, one can find USB sticks protruding from walls. We explain in our video what this is all about.
The Second Life of Hardware
What is the storage doing in the trash? The Samsung 850 Pro was released back in 2014, making it over ten years old. For its time, it was according to Tom’s Hardware one of the best SATA SSDs: it reached the maximum speed of this interface, came with a long warranty of 10 years, and had a durability of 150 TBW (Total Bytes Written). Where exactly the found models come from is unclear. Some users on Reddit suspect that the SSDs originated from a server and were therefore sorted out. In this case, they likely already have many operating hours behind them.
How do you handle such a find? Anyone who makes such a find should first check the drives thoroughly. Tools like CrystalDiskInfo allow checking the health of an SSD; Samsung also offers its own software, Magician, for this purpose. In the comments, several users also recommend checking the SMART values and verifying the condition using manufacturer software.
Before the SSDs are put into operation, a complete wipe and reformatting is also essential. This allows for the removal of old data remnants and reduces the risk that malware or sensitive information from previous owners persist.
This is what will happen to the SSDs: With the trash find, the gamer expands his collection by 6 TB of storage space for games. In his Reddit post, he wrote that he does not intend to store important data on them. This way, he avoids the risk that the drives might unexpectedly fail and he loses his data. He plans to install his entire Steam library on the SSDs so that he always has each game ready to play.
Storage is a constant topic for gamers, whether they pull it from the trash for free or buy it expensively. Sometimes the value of storage devices can also be found where one least expects it. Another buyer experienced a similar surprise when purchasing used hard drives in old boxes. Instead of six drives, he suddenly discovered five more and ended up paying less than 4 euros per terabyte.
