Two Ways to Give an Old USB Flash Drive a New Job

Do you remember when USB flash drives were the greatest invention since the CD-ROM? Engadget notes that they made saving and sharing files for school or work much easier than floppy disks. The drives got bigger over time, until they were as large as external hard drives. Then online cloud storage arrived, and most people's flash drives ended up in boxes and desk drawers. But Engadget says old flash drives and portable hard drives can still be useful, and they may even save you money and give you a little more privacy.

The first idea is to make your own network storage device, called a NAS, which stands for Network Attached Storage. The site explains that Sonos, a wireless home audio system, stopped letting people point their speakers at music folders on their computers and external drives. Users now had to share the music folder over their home network. That meant the hard drive worked like a NAS, because its music was available through the network.

That sparked an idea. If you plug the same old drive straight into your router, everyone in the family who is on the same network can see it on their devices. You could share photos, recipes, to-do lists, books or movies. It would be like a private family cloud, and it is easy to set up. Plug the drive into your router's USB port, if it has one. Open your router settings in a browser and check that file sharing is turned on. The drive should then appear on your local devices like any other network drive. For safety, you can choose which devices on your local network may use it. Only people on your own network can reach the files this way.

The second idea is a slideshow of your photos that does not depend on Google Photos. To share pictures when you are away from home, you can install a free program called HFS, short for HTTP File Server, on your home computer. It works on Windows and Mac.