Hard Drives: Selling whole or parting out

Okay, so I am always reading people either

A. Selling hard drives whole

or

B. Breaking them down and selling the parts individually



My question is, for those of you who have done it both ways, which way have you found to be more profitable?

If you got a local buyer its worth it selling whole if you are shipping its better to break them down.

Originally Posted by Dunemaul

If you got a local buyer its worth it selling whole if you are shipping its better to break them down.

Thanks.

I am also looking to see what kind of a success rate people have had selling them on ebay.

Dont sell them on ebay Just take all the 80 gb or higher drives stick them in a flat rate box and send them to me. Ill test them and pay you well for them.

It's really up to you George. Scrapping 101...Do you have more time then money or more money then time? Do some of each and compare prices to time.

While it takes some time to do a wipe and reformat, It is the computer that is taking the time to do it. I just set it and forget it. I go about other things and come back later when it is done. So time actually involved is not a lot.

Originally Posted by ScrapYaHerd

If you can get over $1.00/lb for hard drives then sell them whole. There are quite a few torx screws and three or so different sizes, sometimes they are super tight. It takes about 10 hard drives to make 1lb of boards and each hard drive usually weighs a little over 1lb whole. So 10 hard drives not broke down call ~$10, Hard drives broken down ~$10 for boards plus the money for the stainless case, cast alum, arm, platters and motor. I think time would be better spent doing something else.

So far I have broken down all of my hard drives. Mainly because I enjoy doing it while I am watching football. So the time involved means nothing to me. I definately get a few extra dollars from the complete breakdown and I enjoy it. Then I get the cast aluminum, the platter sales on e-bay as well as the magnet sales on e-bay.

I have a current stockpile of about 120 or so hard drives and football season is just getting started. Bring on the money.

Before anyone asks, all of the hard drives that I have are either bad or I promised complete destruction of them. Even the complete distruction ones are too low of storage to try and resell if wiped properly.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Dont sell them on ebay Just take all the 80 gb or higher drives stick them in a flat rate box and send them to me. Ill test them and pay you well for them.

How much we talking? lol

Originally Posted by bpatnoe

Do you do a data wipe?

You be ya.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

How much we talking? lol

I have a buyers thread. Check out my prices there. Guess im going to have to pay for some advertising. No one remembers I buy hard drives and ram for more than scrap value.

Originally Posted by purenergypro

maybe I am dumb. but your link says you buy them at $1.00 a pound, I thought that was scrap price? is that above scrap price or am I missing something?

There are 2 links there. Top one is more than scrap price and second one is my scrap prices.

Originally Posted by purenergypro

maybe I am dumb. but your link says you buy them at $1.00 a pound, I thought that was scrap price? is that above scrap price or am I missing something?

I'm not sure of your experience so please don't take what I say as an insult someone else may not know what you know so I will answer to those who have little experience.

In my opinion once you remove the board you have something that can only be sold as dirty Al. The price on dirty Al at my yards is $0.10-$0.25/lb.

If I disassemble the hard drive I get clean Al and usually clean SS. Current prices at my yard are about $0.50/lb for Al and $0.60/lb for SS. With labour and other things like shipping or handleing and consideration for the scrap value of the board $1.00/lb may be a good deal for many. One of our buyers is currently paying $0.85/lb for hard drives.

There are many threads on scrapping hard drives and some are listed at the bottom of this thread. Mike

.85# for harddrives is a good price right now. Before the drop in gold I was getting $1.10 # locally here. Now I can't even sniff out better than .50# . I have a secret weapon though to break them down....a dad who is retired and a mom who wants him out of her hair...lol. So whenever he comes by he leaves with a milk crate of hd's to work on at home.

WOW im still paying $1 a pound for hard drives with boards.

$14 for ram is a good price too