It's just not worth it!

If you find the right buyer you should be able to bring in 30-40 cents per pound for the drives without the board. Many scrap yards do not understand that hard drives are NOT cast, they are milled from extrusion grade Aluminum. With current Aluminum prices you are better off pulling the boards and selling whole. Then ship the boards to one of the buyers here. Even with shipping costs you will come out ahead. Most reputable buyers are paying 60-70 cents per pound whole with the board on.

I guess if hard drives were all I scrapped, I would agree and say it's not worth it because aluminum prices stink right now.

Business phones are the same. Lots of screws, lots of plastic and 1 or 2 small circuit boards that are worth maybe 30 cents.

I cannot make money on phones alone. I'm lucky if I make 8 dollars an hour scrapping phones.

I know some people say they have to make 20, 30 or 40 dollars an hour or they're not going to do it.

I don't look at it that way.

Sometimes I might make 5 dollars an hour and sometimes I might make 300.

I look at the total at the end of the week or month and how much time I've spent and know I've made some darn good money.

My hard drives have been stacking up for about 6 months but I will eventually take every one apart.

Originally Posted by cyberdan

It might be worth it if I lived just down the road. right now shipping 25 lbs to ohio by ground costs $62.00

Whenever I ship to Ohio, I request a prepaid shipping label from them. It is usually about $25 for 65 pounds (give or take a little). Commercial accounts can get much better deals on shipping through Fedex than anything a regular customer can even come close to.

Although I do take my hard drives apart. There is a buyer on here for the magnets and platters too. That makes it worthwhile for me.

I also scrap computers and C.E.D.'s, and I believe a couple of gaylord's of our material, and the use of gorven's shipping option, and The notorious EWASTED as a purchaser, we stand to do very well. Add to that, if you can make the free shipping deal with Gorven, you don't pay for shipping (check with Gorven first)......and get a premium for 90 percent of your work material. Thats a beautiful thing if its a possibility for anyone. Dealing esacrap with the Scrapyard is a last resort, ****ed if you do business practice. EWASTE buyers want what you have, thats why you have to keep shopping buyers and options. It just pays. You are basically a demo/tester statistic to scrapyards. They are just dabbling and testing whether it's a business plus or negative. Keep reading this site, and you can easily find options that are competitive for your material. A Scrapyard is where you drop off junk metal,and maybe basic non-ferrous metals. Maybe find some workable material when needed. And scrapping your drives down completely is good when the complete package is being purchased.

the idea of just sitting down and tearing down drives does not go along way to make it worth it a lot of times for people, you got to do this the way a lot of us do and that's multitasking. sit down and put on a movie or watch tv like you would do otherwise and sit and tear down hard drives. I tear down at least 6hr that way usually 10-15 a day all while doing something I would be doing already. then when it comes time to ship out a pallet I just throw either some or all the remaining ones in boxes minus the board and poof its a great way to make that extra and have fun doing it

Mudlucky and army. Army (more than Scrap value)....mudlucky scrap in general??? Wisconsin. Hope i didnt step on any toes. But when you want to sell, you should refer back to the scrap"buyers and sellers" section. Read everything you can. You will get to know the names and profile pics soon enough. Check out ryanw from Cali. Thats a great start to make more. Best of luck!!