In 2021 I cut the end off a USB cable to expose the power leads which I scotch taped to the power meter on my bike to charge it. I kept that cable. In 2024 I used it to add USB disconnects to the light strip I attached to the bottom of my son's crib, allowing me to keep the light strip intact when we lowered the base from the baby height to the toddler height. A week later we got rid of the strip because we really didn't need the light like that any more. Still, no regrets. This was my version of using every part of the buffalo.
Key <i>for me</i> is to "group" cables. For example, I have a bag of USB-C cables, a bag of USB-A cables, etc.<p>Grouping them is key to deduplicating.<p>It's easy to look at a single legacy USB A-to-B "printer" cable in isolation and think "I might need this someday!" Because you really might need it someday. However, if you group them you might see that you have <i>ten</i> of them. And then you can get rid of... maybe 8 of them.<p>I also (mostly) put individual cables into baggies. You can get clear 2mil generic ziploc style baggies for super cheap on Amazon or elsewhere. $15 for 200 or something. Prvents tangles and way less effort than wrapping or tying them.
This bags or bins or whatever your preferred organization method is. Don't just have "cables" group them. This is how I discovered "yeah, I don't need all these DVI/VGA cables and I can do with only 10 extra HDMI cables".<p>I'll second "grouping" with "capability sorting". Get a cable tester and sort your cables by Charge/USB speeds. Even with my default "grouping" of things like "USB-C -> C", "USB-A -> C", etc I still was buying new cables for projects/uses since I wanted to make sure I got exactly the speed/power requirements right. Now all my cables are sorted by capability and that led to more purging and less purchasing since I can go to my cable bins and grab exactly what I need.
I do this. All my FireWire 400-to-800, 400-to-400, 400-to-dinky little Sony 400, etc. cables were all in one box, the FireWire 800-to-Thunderbolt adapter was in the box with my Thunderbolt cables and adapters, and I still didn't find the FireWire 800-to-800 cable I needed to use Target Disk Mode on a friend's Mac a few months ago until a few weeks later when I was cleaning out my storage unit and found an unused FW800 cable in a box I guess I was saving on the off chance that I needed to return a 15-year-old LaCie RAID enclosure that was shucked about a decade ago off for warranty repairs.
I'm going to steal your idea. What ziploc baggie size have you found is best for cables?
+1000 did _exactly_ this right down to the ziploc. Also a bag for audio, HDMI, old apple cables, and "random" cables. These days, I store the ziplocs in a pelican-type case and that goes in a stack with cases for power cords, camera gear, SBC gear,etc - and the stacks all go on furniture dollies, so I can roll them out.
Yes grouping is the important part. The next important part is labeling.<p>For example, I have a variety of USB C to USB C cables but they each have their own capabilities. Some support high transfer speeds, so I keep them around for connecting SSDs, while others are just USB 2 speeds so they are strictly for charging.<p>Another case is I have a very specific USB C to USB C cable that looks incredibly generic, but it is for connecting a screen tablet to a laptop because the manufacturer decided to make the port recessed, so only their cable fits. If this cable wasn't labeled as for a specific device, I would have donated it years ago.<p>It is some effort, for those who don't like to tinker with tech I can understand why they just shove them all into a box in the back of their closet. But I find that culling my cables at least makes me aware of what I have and don't have.<p>One other suggestion I have is just buying a longer cable than you think you need because eventually you'll have the need for it anyway. I have so many 3.5mm aux cables because I kept changing my desk set up and needing to buy longer and longer cables. If I had just bought the longest cable I could have at the time I would have saved myself some headache.<p>Another tip is adapters. Sometimes it's easier to just have cables of one type and a bunch of adapters for when you need them rather than having a ton of different cables for each possible scenario. I used to have a mix of RCA and 3.5mm cables but never had the right combination of what I needed at the time. Eventually I caved in and just bought a ton of adapters so I could standardize all the cables and use adapters as needed. Same with USB C cables.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was going to write. I group my cables into boxes for USB, power, network, audio/video, and power supplies. The boxes are a finite size, and when no more cables will fit into the box, I go through and do some deduplication.
>However, if you group them you might see that you have ten of them.<p>My first thought was "awesome, what project can I start that uses ten of those cables?"
> clear 2mil generic ziploc style baggies<p>> transparent plastic box<p>> Banker's Boxes<p>Do not do this. All plastic baggies, storage tubs, and grocery bags, are going to build up with static electricity. While it may seem totally fine to drop inert cables into a plastic bag, eventually you'll come up against a USB stick, or an SSD or SDRAM, or something, and that ESD damage will not be a pleasant customer experience.<p>Go here: <a href="https://silicagelpackets.com/aluminized-and-clear-moisture-barrier-bags-and-heat-sealers" rel="nofollow">https://silicagelpackets.com/aluminized-and-clear-moisture-b...</a><p>I picked up some resealable, aluminized bags and they've lasted for years. I also purchased fistfuls of silica gel packets, and I toss one into each bag when I seal it up.<p>I'm not sure if organizing "by cable type" would make sense to me, when there are adapters and dongles involved. Some of these baggies have been labeled by the central device, e.g. "All ThinkPad accessories are in here".<p>Also, for cable organizing, I've ordered rolls of plain Velcro strips: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/VELCRO-Brand-VEL-30765-AMS-Self-Gripping-Management/dp/B09QH2NVM1/ref=sr_1_13?crid=W79S109DAOPJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZJSMpMIsqGSurz5Bf6Dp7lCpa2d7hoSAD4SzskaflR2egdHNeWx3ErXwTk9WHH4zjIhCGqQlcHrXgkJ8lAgENQs_oXxZKSuumoT8NfKdRdFa2iBrkr-VDBYue6cH1K-s5kC9JMR9iWnjl6b93iUxb1sFY2cb_VUK2s0zJhPHxgtW3_QoUwv6FyOvkZQgl4zS9Jz-FyFDB0WpjWFKC52Ya2dxxot_HcL7kuc1Y6X7LXo.4L-7IDfqe-JH5uC6Pgo6IoL7LBasR9LIq9ENXDSipwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=velcro%2Broll&qid=1789058018&sprefix=velcro%2Brol%2Caps%2C253&sr=8-13&th=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/VELCRO-Brand-VEL-30765-AMS-Self-Gripp...</a><p>You can just cut these to the desired length and wrap them around your cables, for routing or bundling. They are, of course, reusable. I cut little notches in them so that they stay locked to each cable. You could get them in rainbow colors, but I like the white rolls so that I can write on them with a Sharpie.
Hmm, interesting. I've never had a static charge issue, but then again, maybe I will someday. I'll definitely look into that next time I mess around with my storage. Thank you.
I see those boxes at estate sales regularly. And on FB marketplace for free or $5. Or sometimes somebody thinks they're sitting on a gold mine of technological history and tries to ask actual money for a box of 20 year old tangles.<p>Sometimes hoarding stuff pays off. It's <i>usually</i> just hoarding.
I periodically go through the big box of cables and pull out anything that I don't expect to ever need again.<p>I put those in another box, seal it completely, and write a message on the outside along the lines of "presumed useless - Sep 2016".<p>If I come across that box in, say, September 2026, I feel entirely comfortable tossing the whole thing.
I'm terrified of not being able to find old USB cables.<p>My D2A converter I use to route TV audio to a small amplifier died. It was cheap, but decent. I wanted another cheap one. I had trouble finding any. Finally, I snagged a pair on Amazon/eBay, but it used ancient USB connections. Luckily, I had old USB cables, so I'm good. But what will I do if the USB cable stops working?
I wish the old cables, gear, etc. I have squirreled-away stopped saving Customers' and friends' asses because I could feel good about getting rid of it.<p>We've been unspooling the stash of wood off-cuts, bits of copper pipe, and misc. broken or trash-picked parts from my late grandfather's workshop for the last few years. He always seemed to have materials at-hand to fix anything and, as a kid, I was in awe of that. Now I understand why.<p>I hope I can leave less stuff for my daughter to poke thru, but at the same time I want to be like my grandfather, seemingly being able to fix anything immediately.
If you have children, at least one of them may become fascinated with retro hardware, and play with all of this stuff, reinstalling OS and connecting old drives. Once they grow past that phase, THEN you can bring everything to the e-Waste center :)
Only one big box of cables! What an amateur.<p>You need at least 4. And another one for power supplies.
We have a local thrift store that sorts and stores the cables very nicely. 95% of the time I can find exactly what I need right away.<p>That doesn't mean I don't also have my big box of cables, but just offering an alternate strategy.
You’re not serious about it if you only have one box
My boxes been sorted by "what does the cable carry", one power cables, one data, one video, one patch cables, then some are split out, like sound production related cables, one with balanced 1/4", one unbalanced, one MIDI... I think in total 8 moving boxes by now.
Challenge: come up with categories for the boxes such that every item has exactly one box that is correct for it.<p>I've got "USB", "AV" and "Networking & PC Accessories", which obviously has enormous overlap, but equally divides the cables I have pretty nicely.
Audio, computer, electric!
Funny this came up hn today. this week I did some organization of my cable boxes. I use banker boxes on a steel shelving unit. I put the cables and parts inappropriate boxes and labeled them and feel that my corner of the universe is a little bit better organized than before.<p>Mine is similar but I split audio and video since I have a lot of audio-specific stuff. "Video" only has the various monitor cable standards going back 20-odd years.
I think I've got the same three boxes. HDMI cables and adapters fall into the Venn diagram overlap of the last two IMO. You could also make a strong argument for USB also falling into "PC Accessories". But there's nothing quite as satisfying as having the _exactly right_ cable or adapter on hand to solve a problem. Makes it all worth it!
Easy! I put exclusions on my labels<p>"USB cables, standard"<p>"USB passive/special, except pigtails and USB->AV"<p>"AV, including USB-AV cables"
Those are my categories!
"USB", "TV/HDMI", "Networking", "Every Audio Connector Known to Man", and the inimitable: "Plugs-to-Wall"
For real, I have like 200 kilos of cables. I could very likely reduce that down to something less severe, but that involves sorting and inventorying 200 kilos of cables.
I have one for video cables, one for audio cables, one for computer gear. Does that make me serious our mildly interested?
Yesterday I found I still have a dozen firewire cables of different types but no devices to use them with. I put them in the possible recycle box.
1. it is easy to buy a cable and have it delivered to your home in 24 hours
2. You have to be able to remember -where- the box of cables is
3. box of cables takes up space and clutters your environment<p>Throw out the box of cables.
1. I always know where my box of cables is, because it’s never moved from its location . 2. It takes up less than two shoeboxes of space, which is hardly anything in my home. 3. If I need the cable right now, I don’t have to wait 24 hours. 4. It costs me nothing to keep them.
> it is easy to buy a cable and have it delivered to your home in 24 hours<p>* for now, in certain locations, from certain retailers
Whoever does need it, I give you permission to throw out all your old cables, power adapters, and routers. Yes, on the off chance you do decide you need a Palm III dock, Linksys WRT54G, or Sony PSP charger that means you'd have to buy one on Ebay, but you can cross that $10 bridge if it actually happens.
And whoever needs something else, I give you permission to ignore this fool and keep your box(es) of cables. I don't regret a single thing about my ~8 boxes of cables.
For me it's not the cost that bugs me when I don't have a part, but rather the disruption to my flow. If I can't get a project done all at once I'm much less likely to ever get it done.
I have a rack of boxes of cables in my home, its not that out of the ordinary since I'm in the industry and am the network admin for my entire block in my housing community.<p>The other day I was fabberglased I could not find an HDMI to HDMI cable! HDMI > DVI yes, to VGA yes, to display port yes, to mini-HDMI yes. it was so shameful, for me having to go to amazon/best buy to purchase an HDMI cable is the lowest of the low.
In my big box of cables I have, among other things, a double-ended USB-A cable. I understand that this is absolutely not standards compliant, and I have absolutely no idea of where I got it from. I have never used it. But it is a thing that exists.<p>Getting rid of almost 10 different proprietary charging cables for pre-smart phones and some old laptops felt great though :P
This came with a double-ended USB-A for charging: <a href="https://www.rei.com/product/248291/biolite-luci-original-clear-20-inflatable-solar-lantern" rel="nofollow">https://www.rei.com/product/248291/biolite-luci-original-cle...</a>
There are also cables that look exactly like a double-ended USB-A cable but aren't. <a href="https://ftdichip.com/products/usb-nmc-2-5m/" rel="nofollow">https://ftdichip.com/products/usb-nmc-2-5m/</a>
I had one of those to charge a bicycle headlight. I gave it away with the bicycle, but in the span of time I had it, one visiting guest borrowed it to recharge a portable generic USB battery pack. So there you go, two product categories known to use that sort of cable!
You and the other responders are probably familiar with it, but you made me look up this decent StackExchange answer again, coming from a search for "the forbidden usb cable" :)<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/444287" rel="nofollow">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/444287</a>
I installed some HP slide-out rackmount keyboard/monitor units that used these as the host connection. This was back in the days when PS/2 was still around so they usually weren't used.
> double-ended USB-A cable.<p>Decades ago, I purchased a usb external hard drive case with a usb-a for the connection to the computer. Returned that pretty quick because eww.
Mine came from usb<->sata adapters.
mine came from a USB charger spycam
Clear Hefty Slider bags are perfect for this! I have my cable boxes (Hefty Hi-Rise) filled with these bags, USB -A to USB-C, USB -C to USB-C (then sub-bagged with 65w, 100w, 240w) and so on.<p>Point is, use clear bags so you can see inside, and Hefty makes the slider version. I get the gallon and half gallon bags for this, and then the quart size as well. This is the Marie Kondo technique and it's amazing for keeping all these cables which are always coming in handy!<p>I keep the duplicates, because you never know which color and length is going to be the perfect fit for the current need!
My cable box is my retirement fund. Copper prices are rising, and scrap-metal dealers pay pretty well for it.
But jokes aside: last year I also sorted some out and took 10 kilos of household cables to the local scrap-metal dealer here in Germany and got €30 for them. Better than throwing them away.
Do you have flea markets in DE? I'm pretty sure 10 kg of cables could be sold for more than €100 in a single day. Is it not common in DE?
My gold plated monster cables are going to make me a millionaire
I try to keep only 3 or 4 of the same cable, and if one gets damaged, I throw it away after the fourth or fifth time I look at it and wonder if I can fix it.
I had four big plastic totes full of cables. I pared them down to just one recently. I'm 90% happy with the move. It's ok to let go sometimes.
Reminds me of this Onion classic: <a href="https://theonion.com/jumbled-nest-of-cords-makes-move-to-third-new-apartment-1819592125/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/jumbled-nest-of-cords-makes-move-to-thi...</a>
Oh never. I have 2 giant boxes of them. The absolute worst thing ever is when you need something like a USB or HDMI cable, and you're forced to spend like 40 bucks at Best Buy because you're in a pinch.
I have a transparent plastic box of my own, with cables twist-tied and sorted into labeled zip bags.<p>The box stays, but cables come and go. I cleared out some PS/2 related cables recently, after not owning any hardware with that port for like a decade now.
Every now and then I look through the cables and take out the ones I no longer have hardware for. We have a cargo-tram every couple of months where you can bring things for disposal that don't go to normal garbage or recycling. Supposedly they recycle the cables but I suspect that means incinerating them (to generate electricity) and collecting the metal after.
Somewhere, deep in a storage tote, a UW SCSI cable I paid 50 bucks for at Fry's shows a glimmer of hope.
Wife forced me to consolidate my boxes of cables to a single bin. I joke the retail price of the bin is hundreds of dollars
At some point I need to go through my USB-A-C cables and figures out which ones are actually USB 3. Which only have power and which are USB2... Thankfully I think I have tester that can do that.
do yourself a favour and buy some zip mesh bag on amazon (often used for children's toy sorting; they're much more robust than zip-locks) and use them to group your cables. the big box(es) goes from a source of stress to an absolute delight.
Grouping is also key to de-duplicating IMO. Can be tough to throw away a single cable. But when you have 10 of them grouped together, you know you can safely get rid of them.<p>IM/FWIW: I personally have found 4mil ziploc-style bags to be pretty close to indestructible. They're like thick evidence locker bags
I do have a big box 'o cables, though organization is getting difficult. I need some way to organize them into broad categories (USB, audio, power, ethernet, etc).
That's pretty much exactly my organization, instead of a big box I split them into smaller tubs. USB is further divided via labeled bags into USB A->C, USB C, Lightning, and "misc". On top of those I have a R/C car battery/charging tub and a home automation tub.<p>There are some 3d printer models for building grids of individual cable organizers (<a href="https://makerworld.com/en/models/946444-gridfinity-cable-organizer-drawer-storage-cable-bo" rel="nofollow">https://makerworld.com/en/models/946444-gridfinity-cable-org...</a>) but I have too many cables and my collection is too dynamic to well-utilize something as static as that.
Large 4mil ziploc style bags are extremely durable and are about $0.26 each in bulk on Amazon.<p>I very much recommend them. As a bonus, you can label them if desired. (Print a label out, or slap some tape on there and write on that, or just stick a sheet of paper inside the bag and write on that)
How on earth do you survive with just one big box of cables? I've got mine sorted into plastic storage boxes with labels, so things like 'Firewire' or 'Monitor' or 'SCSI' can get me to a particular box to sort through. I recently needed a SCSI-2 terminator to connect a CD-ROM drive to a 1990s sampler, and my box came up trumps. It's so pleasing when you find stuff like that...
Rubbermaid Roughneck half size of resealable bags of cables.
I still have quite a number of packing cubes with silicone-tie'ed and zip tie'ed cables.<p>I do want to mention though, a huge amount of cables can be replaced by usb-c cables + an adapter. You don't need a bus to HDMI cable: just get an adapter that has usb-c female, that your cable plugs into, that changes it to HDMI. Ditto for displayport, USB micro, USB b, USB a.<p>And for power VFLEX has a quite reasonably priced adapter to DC barrel jacks. I still have I dunno 70 power supplies, for laptops, gadgets and whatever. But at this point almost all my devices actually run on high efficiency gan usb-c power supplies. These once again follow the pattern: a usb-c female, then a pigtail (yay, better than fixed, like the HDMI), then the barrel jack.
> a huge amount of cables can be replaced by usb-c cables + an adapter.<p>And now you have a bunch of boxes with adapters ;P
You're not wrong, but many times I've gone looking for a specific adapter (because I already had a similar cable) and found out that the adapters _usually_ cost as much or more than just buying the cable.
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