My HHDs have turned to dust

[upper barn]

Ok so I have a lot of HDDs that I got from ewaste over the years, and some weren’t working but the platters were fine, so I kept them, so if I found another one of the same model, I could change the board and hopefully have them work again. But I’ve been going through my HDDs and some sound like maracas! Idk why! They’ve been just standing still for a couple years maybe, in my room, along with other HDDs. And I have so many of them literally turn to dust! Does anyone know why this could be happening? Because I have some working HDDs with important files on them and I don’t want them to turn to dust as well. Am I doing something that’s hurting them? I’ll send a video of some that have this problem. (The first hdd on the video is fine and I included it for reference)

Oh yeah also I just remembered that some of these HDDs show in the video were working fine a couple months ago and I had formatted them. I truly don’t know why they just exploded by themselves!

[ivory pebble]

The way you’re slapping those down, is that always how you handle them?

If you do that for a few years, it’s very easy to shatter the platters

In any case, any important data should follow the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3 copies of data, 2 media types, and 1 offsite

[ivory pebble]

Okay it may just be amplified by the phone mic

[upper barn]

No of course not haha. I take good care of all my HDDs. (I’ve had some losses so I’ve also learned the hard way) and yeah it is kinda amplified by the phone’s mic, but I would never put down a working hdd like that.
Otherwise, I have no idea why they have broken. It’s really weird.

[eager bough]

The only way platters shatter inside drives is if they're subject to a hard enough shock or were already defective to begin with...

[upper barn]

I have no idea. They were just standing still and unused for a long time. And yes some were defective. But I had like 3-4 working drives do the same thing. The only shock would be me like opening and closing the drawer that some of them were in. But the ones in the video were not in a drawer. It baffles me tbh 🫤

[eager bough]

I'm just relaying how physics works in my experience. I have never had drive platters just shatter on their own when drives are stored on a shelf or in a bookcase for 15+ years.

[upper barn]

I have so many HDDs of many different brands and somehow most of the ones that broke themselves are WD blues. now I’m not saying that it’s because they’re WD drives… but it’s a weird coincidence

Could it be because I had them stacked on top of each other on a desk, that slightly vibrates when opening the drawers or if I drop something on it, and those vibrations where enough to somehow shatter the drives? I doubt it but I wouldn’t rule it out.

I have them here (these aren’t the only ones I have, but I noticed the the ones that shattered were mostly on my desk)

[eager bough]

Who knows. The drives are shattered. There's no unshattering them.

[upper barn]

And I have like 2-3 here that also shattered. There are 13 big HDDs and some smaller ones and SSDs

This is the only kinda shock they go through

I should check all the other drives around my room to see if any of them have also shattered