Besides the hard drive, you’ll need a docking station, mounting enclosure, or adapter to connect the HDD to your PC. For a barebones setup ...
you can use an old hard drive as a network attached storage server for wireless access. You will need a router and a NAS adapter. Plug in the adapter and connect the hard drive to its USB port.
You can just toss that old hard drive in a drawer ... smashing it with a large hammer and breaking off the connector pins where the data and power plug in. Even if you do all of these things ...