Hard drives what to do

Pretty darn new to escrap. Maybe 2 months. My question here is. I jave around 300 hard drives i got from a school. Mostly all 80gb and not sata.
I do this part time when i get the time each night as i have a regular job. I love tearing stuff down. But my question is. With prices as they are would i be better off breaking them down and sending off the boards, or selling them whole as lbs. Also i do not have a way of testing them at the moment. I might assume most work since they came from a school who just basically nuked them clean to upgrade their computers. So maybe send them off to someone who checks them but i dont feel they are the valuable sata ones nor do they have more than 80gb

Any thoughts

Soo pull the boards then sell whats left as dirty aluminum. I do have a buyer close that has gotten into escrap buying. Their a big yard who i tale all my metals too as well as automotive cores. Never sold escrap there yet. And the guy whose in charge of that section never returns phone calls

I enjoy sarcasm mechanic.
I do realize thru research on here every part has a buyer. The towers i get from same school no question break them all down have them nicely sorted. I was just more curious more on the hd drives since i have so many with more to come and since their only 80gig non sata. Would the time vs return value be better off just scrapping them whole. Now i know that the value of one mans time is solely based on what one man voews it at.

Originally Posted by Crazybutter921

Soo pull the boards then sell whats left as dirty aluminum. I do have a buyer close that has gotten into escrap buying. Their a big yard who i tale all my metals too as well as automotive cores. Never sold escrap there yet. And the guy whose in charge of that section never returns phone calls

If he's not returning your calls take some hard drives to the yard and talk to him. Ask him how much he will pay with and without the circuit board attached and then ask him how much for the boards alone. You should also check some of the buyers here and see how much they are paying for hard drive boards. I'm getting 8 dollars a pound from my local buyer.

Send them to me!! Not sure why, but I enjoy taking them apart.
I did the math and concluded that there is only an additional 23 cents to be made from tearing them apart.
So it is back to you and what your time is worth. Good luck.

once you do say 20-30 by hand knowing were hidden screws are and how fast to open them get yourself a decent drill that you can adjust torch and speed. less than 2minutes it takes me to tear down most time spent is fussing with magnets that stick lol.
platters and magnets are great and something as prices are dropping right now you can stockpile if you want to in a small space but always do well on ebay. boards of course are the best paying on them but all of it sells.
there are fun days I watch movies and tear down drives by hand so multitasking is a good option as well

This is in NewZealand.
But someone pointed out some 80Gig haqrd drives I had chucked into a mates 'yard sale' (914.4mm sale)and said that "someone he knows wants 80gig drives for a older surveilence system they have".

Maybe, probably not helpfull but there are people who want them.

Thank you all for the advice. I went ahead and started breaking down the boards last night. And on a few breakin down all way including platter magnets etc. Trying to compare time. Really easy to do especially when i go get the screwgun today for the torx bit. Cuz riggt now doong all by hand. 20 down 280 to go. Hope it works out

Most of the time theres a Stainless steel cover plate on harddrives, sometimes theres a Ali plate glued to it and sometimes, well just magnetic steel.

I just noticed how many Stainless plates I had when I poured my small stainless container into a sack with my other stainless steel.

About the reader arm. Someone buys these intact, with the mylar stip and its plug.
I'm sorta getting the impression that some of the early harddrives (of the common size) have Gold wires on or in the mylar strip and out from the mylar to the reading tip.
The arm part wires are what I'm sure about.
They just seem to be 'more Gold' than a lot of other potential Gold wire stuff.
For instance the Gold wires on the Glass 'delay line' plate on some older, bigger CRT TV's.

Oh believe me. Im saving all screws. And yes i have been plucking the reader arms with mylar. Need to find that buyer.

Let me ask this then. So im breaking these down. Taking boards out. Platters out. Reader arms and mylar out magnets out etc. Basicalky with the shell then i should seperate the shell or casing , the back plate amd the cover. As they are 3 different materials on most. Instead of putting back together amd selling as whole worh more weight

Not sure that the question makes sense. There are a number of different things in a hard drive;

1: The circuit board on the back.

2: A bit of gold mylar going from the board to the motor. ( sometimes)

3: The front cover. either Al ,stainless,or a combination.

4: The reader arm assembly.

5: The magnet (s)

6: Steel pivot posts. ( sometimes )

7: The platters

8: platter spacers. ( sometimes al, sometimes ss )

9: The drive motor

10: The screws

It all varies.

The most valuable thing is probably the logic board. They sell by the pound. The boards on the older drives are bigger so they weigh more. The boards on the newer drives & laptop drives are much smaller and don't weigh very much at all.

The next thing is the case. It's considered to be cast at the yard I go to. Same price as sheet. They might be worth .20 - .25 each if they're clean ?

~ Just an opinion ~

They used to be worth breaking down when scrap prices were higher and the logic boards were large & heavy. Nowadays, it just doesn't seem like it's worth doing for what you get out of it. It's more time efficient to sell them whole if you can get fifty to seventy five cents each for em'. Turn-n-burn !