Old Vhs Tapes Turned Into Slightly Less Old Hard Drives

January 19th, 2010 by: Paul Strauss

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Need some additional storage for your computer? Then you might want to check out these wacky hard drives, fashioned out of old VHS tapes. Sure, VHS tape tech is definitely obsolete, but aren’t hard drives on their way out too? It just begs the question: why not a Betamax cassette with a 3.5″ floppy drive inside; or a U-Matic tape with a punch card reader built in?

So back to the topic at hand… The guys over at CentennialMerchant have been ripping out the guts of classic movie VHS tapes, and embedding new hard drives inside them. Ok, Star Trek: The Motion Picture doesn’t really count as a “classic.”

Was there really a need for a “Longer Edition” of this movie? All I remember is the original theatrical release had about 45 minutes of indulgent footage panning around the exterior of the Enterprise, and the second worst “futuristic” costumes in the history of mankind. The EPCOT Center employee wardrobe wins first prize.

Personally, I hated Top Gun as much as the next guy, but at least they have the original Star Wars trilogy available too.

The drives range in price from $104.99 (USD) for a 320GB model, to $154.99 for the 640GB model. And if you have a favorite movie, they’ll make one custom for you if they can find the VHS version for me. You can find them all over on CentennialMerchant’s Etsy shop.

Personally, I’ll only be truly impressed when they can cram an 8-inch floppy drive inside a Blu-ray disc.

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