hard-drive question

[aaron p]

How many of yall strip hard drives apart completely, or just pull the board, or sell them whole w/ board?? Standard desktop HDD weighs right at 1.05lb on my scale which is matching e-wasteds on my payout sheets lately. I was given about 350 hard drives by one of my customers that had their business flooded some during the storms along with 40 or so laptops. Im figuring they are worth .75c ea as is, or maybe 25c or less without the boards. Takes alot of boards to make a pound for that $9.20 mark, especially thin laptop drive logic boards. Just getting yalls opinion? Im a 1 man army, an it takes hours and days to get stuff torn down.

[JJinLV]

It does take several boards to get to that pound. The board isn't the only value though. You'll get die cast aluminum for most of the weight and other prices for the platter (has lots of cobalt), neodymium magnet and more. Most local yards will take the die cast (.40ish/pd most likely). And really doing the magnets as lots of 10 on ebay should get you over the hd scrap price alone.

[APA]

I wait until I have extra time and I break the hard drives down always.

[Ace]

It takes a lot of time to break down a Desktop or a laptop hard drive. I take the board off both types of hard drives, and sell as is. I get .35 lb from my yard for HD wo/board. Even if your good at the break down, I'm not real sure it's worth it. I would get .45 lb for the Aluminum case, .15 lb for the motor. If you wanted to sell on ebay the magnets, that's another option. Really time consuming in my opinion

[HipoGear]

I break them down. But no the laptop ones, those I just pull boards.

I like having all the cast aluminum for trips to the yard. I usually send my magnets to a buyer here, shipping them in a regional rate box makes it not extremely profitable, but worthwhile IMO.

[chilibean]

I work alone as well. I am actually driving to see Ewasted today. I have just went through this process again, remembering the long lesson I didn't learn well enough the previous breakdown session, if you have a ton of hard drives, and have a lot of vintage drives, or server drives, or vintage server drives( my "go to" tear them down circumstance. I treat the CD/DVD drives the same. It appears to be getting more and more of a rarity to amass the necessary weight that makes it worth the time and effort. The boards are fractional in size and weight, compared to even 7-8 years ago. The board chips are dwindling away to nothing in general, the Precious metal content is down to necessity. And the competition is falling out of the sky at an alarming rate. I have learned so much, and have made it through total **** times, and finally have a firm grasp on what to do, and what to expect. I don't expect to make it much longer, from nothing to do,lol. I am going to shake the hand of the only man I have done business with that hasn't burned me for trusting him. And then it's time to gather up all of my little secrets that have been hiding for 5 years, and finding a refinery who will allow me to have at least some of my precious metals when they are done with their cut. Just a smile from the results would be a positive note to focus on after all of this 19 hour a day, I feel stupid for asking that question, **** I forgot to bring my ramsticks to the buyer, type exhaustion that helped me prove to the others and myself no matter what, I CAN MAKE A LIVING OFF OF THIS INDUSTRY, OTHERS ARE DOING IT BEFORE ME, YOU FAILED BECAUSE YOU GAVE UP WHEN IT GOT TOUGH, AND I DID IT TO PROTECT MY CHILD AND MY NEIGHBORS FROM BEING POISONED BY THE **** YOU GUYS PREFER TO LOAD IN YOUR TRUCK AND THROW IN THE NEAREST CREEK LIKE A BUNCH OF IRRESPONSIBLE, INBRED, JIVE ASSED TURKEYS, WHO SHOULD AT LEAST TRY TO PICK UP AFTER THEMSELVES, SO THE KIDS DONT FOLLOW SUIT, AND HELP THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POISON THE WHOLE **** PLANET, FOR PROFITS THEY DONT EVEN NEED OR DESERVE!!!! HELL WITH IT, IM OUT! BUT my heart and soul felt a flicker of warmth from knowing what it took, and that I persevered through it all alone. Thanks Grandpa,for the blue collar blood, and the wisdom to make it work for everyone, instead of just me. Sorry Aaron, I just made up my mind. You people are respected by me, and I learned everything from this Forum. Especially Mike, whom I wish I could at least say thank you. All of you are badasses, and Nobel, and deserve respect and dignity above all else. You keep the world from dying, the people from killing themselves, and the metals from being lost. Be safe, until your eyes stay closed forever. Peace!!!

[aaron p]

Not sure how to respond to that, but thanks I think....
Im going to pull the boards, sell the laptop drives as breakage/dirty cast, then when time permits breakdown the desktop drives. Prices got a bump this week, so I will keep breaking them down.

[Ecycle Atlanta]

Pro's and cons for taking apart:

Pros: Customer doesnt have to worry about data security too much. Not as good a method as shredding but better than selling whole. Also, you will probably come out a little bit ahead than selling whole.

Cons: Time. If you said you had 20-30 drives, then I would assume you to be part time and probably able to take them apart while watching football or something. But, if you have 350 my guess is that you have a decent sized business. I was once in your shoes and realized I was chasing pennies and wasting time on low-profit items. You can sell the drives whole, quick and easy (hopefully after they have been wiped) and make good money and have more time on your hands for items with a better margin. cpu, ram, etc can bring you more $, plus any drives that are tested, wiped and can sell for reuse. The other consideration is storage. No matter the size of your facility you have to keep stock moving out to make room for new stuff. The more you process, the more chance of getting better/newer/higher value items. Dump the drives and use the extra time to market yourself and increase volume. I started in my garage and now have 4000+ sq ft facility, and still dont have enough space because I cant move it out as fast as it comes in. Great problem to have but still a problem.

[aaron p]

It has been a busy year since I started to get involved in e-scrap in January. It is not a full time job for me, but I do have 2 other small part time business's and a full time 40hr job that pays very well. I do this b/c I am 32 now and I want to retire at 55. Everything I own is paid off, house, cars, boats, etc.. b/c I worked hard. Ive sent 2 pallets in to Mario so far, and I am almost ready to send another one in real soon. I am working currently on tear down 7 pallets of traffic control boxes and camera equipment I won at a local auction in march (Just now being able to get to it). I built a 650ft detached garage that I do my sorting in and storage. Im lucky to have very little competition in my area with e-scrap, so that helps. I will not mention my location b/c I know this is a public forum and eyes are watching I am sure of. Combined with all my home business's and work, I can clear 6 figures roughly, but if I lost my full time job, that would get cut in half and my benefits would be gone. So its a balance for me. I want to work for myself full time, but health insurance and 401k are about the only things keeping me there.

[Metalbestos]

i prefer to break them down , I use the magnets to hold tools eye level at work . Plus it's nice to have some cast to sell when your making steel runs . I can see benefits of either method depending on volume . But I don't mind amassing them until the time presents itself .

Totally agree on the laptop hd thou , pull the board and dirty aluminum bucket bound . I also pull cd/DVD boards and throw the shell in shred . It's good your questioning these things thou . Shows your willing to adapt and not conform to the norm . Best wishes in whichever path you choose .

[aaron p]

Should I pull this i486 chip? If so, how do I do it? heat the solder with heat gun or something else?

[aurum]

Should I pull this i486 chip? If so, how do I do it? heat the solder with heat gun or something else?

I would pull it off. Use a heat gun, heat from the back side while prying gently. Make sure to do it outside or an area with good ventilation.

For the hard drives, I pull the boards, and sell the rest to a local yard for around 0.35-0.40 per lb. Not worth my time to break down fully.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Should I pull this i486 chip? If so, how do I do it? heat the solder with heat gun or something else?

Leave it on. Soldered chips dont have the gold pins so he value of that chip is not the same as others.

[aaron p]

What class would that get? High level telecom I would think

[JJinLV]

What class would that get? High level telecom I would think

That's what it looks like to me too but am very new to board grading.

[jimicrk]

Leave it on. Soldered chips dont have the gold pins so he value of that chip is not the same as others.

I pulled 2 NEC ceramic processors off of a telecom board recently. They were soldered on and they had gold pins also.

[aaron p]

This 486 has gold pins. I can clearly see them. I know they are each worth about $6.50 in scrap, the board weighs .27lb. Im waiting to see what grade/price ewasted says as is. I emailed them.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Then I stand corrected. I have yet to find one of these boards with a soldered chip have the gold legs. If this is the case I would definitly take a heat gun and take that chip off then.

[aaron p]

Buyer says to leave it on, solder has contaminated the gold, so it would not get the 486/386 price, would be lower. Its high high telecom as is.

As far as hard-drives go, I am going to sell them whole with boards. I have done the math and its roughly 20 logic boards per lb on desktop drives that weigh roughly 1.25lbs on average. I dont have any local yard that buys them whole without boards, so it would be breakage at 11c/lb. Not worth the large amount of time it would take to tear down 200-300 drives and then half the covers are magnetic/cast combo, so its 11c for half the weight per drive. The math/numbers just arent there. I will put them in boxes on the pallet box and send them out with my next shipment next week.

[aaron p]

My light bulb just clicked. After shipping costs approx 28c per pound (on a 500lb pallet), its better to pull the board and sell the drive for the extra 11-15c. and only have approx 15lbs of logic boards with a shipping cost of only $3.90 on the pallet. and that gives me more space for mobos, li-ion batterys, etc..

Sorry to be long-winded with this post. Just trying to maximize profit without having to spend days tearing it down. Time is money!