Recently I've found the need for a lot of storage. Money isn't unlimited. Recycling hard drives lets me to do things like putting a 1tb hd in my digital audio where it might normally not get the upgrade. Old hard drives usually get recycled unless there's a good reason not to. I tossed my larger 5400 rpm drives. I kept a few small ata drives in case I have some need for a small drive. So far nothing.
If I want to go back to 1995 to about 2005, that's the era I can do easily. About 1995 is when I bought a CD burner and used it to backup my computers. In 2002 I got a DVD burner. Back then a CD or DVD would usually copy my entire hard drive. Most of the disks are still viable.
I discovered I have another time machine. A number of years ago our user groups BBS SYSOP passed away. Shortly after I got a call that the BBS was down. I said I knew absolutely nothing about First Class BBS software but Fred said that that's ok, come fix it, then we can go for breakfast. I managed to get it going and then took the manuals home. Shortly after I realized I needed something to experiment on without risking the BBS so I made a copy. I'd make a copy of the copy and play around with that. I still have that original copy. Fortunately about a year later someone with a lot of FC experience retired and had time to take over the job. That gives me an idea. Our user group, ApplesBC is going to die in about 3 months. Maybe for the last meeting I'll resurrect the old BBS for one night. BBS has been gone a few years, would any of the older members recall their passwords?