I'm getting rid of a stack of 2GB, 3GB, 4GB and 6GB hard drives that have been accumulating in a corner of my bench, all going to an electronics-recycler.

These drives were all made more than 10 years ago. The were all in regular use and known to be good right up to the day they were pulled. None has sat on the bench for more than 3 years. All were stored in anti-static bags.

Of 9 drives...

(2) Seagates were dead.

(3) Western Digital drives spun up, but wouldn't mount.

(1) IBM mounted, but died with a loud head-crash during a 7-pass erase.^*

(3) Quantum Fireballs all mounted and all survived a 7-pass erase.^*

^*Why a 7-pass erase? Do you know how long it takes to do a 7-pass erase on a modern 7200RPM 1TB SATA drive? It takes the whole weekend and maybe more. You know how long it takes on a 6GB 4200RPM PATA drive? A bit over Forty minutes. Did you know that before? Well, I didn't.