Hard Drives scrap or ebay?

Yes, I have asked this in the past, but I am asking it again for a few reasons.

When I first starting reselling hard drives on ebay, I did rather well. Would sell between $20 to $45. Depending on manufacturer and size, and whether IDE or SATA.

However, in the blink of an eye, I have amassed over 100 hard drives (or very close to it!) Desktop and Laptop both! Everything from 20gb to 350gb!

I am trying to decide on the best course of action...which so far, I have down to these options:

1. Sell individually (the higher ones from 80gb and up). scrap the rest.
2. sell individually (the higher ones from 80gb and up). Group the rest and sell into lots.
3. Sell them all into certain size lots.
4. scrap them all

I am looking to maximize my time and effort really. If I scrap them all or any of them, I can do probably 10 or more every evening in my spare time for a couple of weeks and be done.

If I did resell them, I would of course only do the ones that work...the ones that didnt I would scrap.

I have been doing well on selling ram (about to sell all smaller ram in a good lot on ebay, after I process the stuff I got from today's recycling event), PCI cards, a few heat sinks with fans, and 1 or more motherboards.

Originally Posted by robsrecycling

it depends on if you have the time to test them . I sell some but scrap others .I scrap all ide drives but tst and sell most sata drives

Yeah, Sata test real good, and are generally good for re sale value depending on manufacturer and size.

Option #5...sell to PTS.

Originally Posted by KzScrapper

Option #5...sell to PTS.

I like that option best of all

Originally Posted by robsrecycling

1 piece of advice tho if you are testing sata drives .you might want to buy a usb sata docking station .makes life much easier to test them

If your wiping the drives you might want to buy a Esata docking station so it doesnt take 3 days to wipe a 1tb drive My 4 bay docking station just did 160gb drive in 3.5 hours for a full 3 pass DOD wipe.

I do all of the above.......Depending on the time I have Etc.....I re-sell on ebay and CL the biggest Sata drives or use them in systems for re-sell.........A few go on Ebay....Some to scrap and the rest to PTS.......

sell the 500gb and larger ones on ebay same deal with 2gb and smaller. I give out alot of the 100-400gb to family/friends. And scrap the rest.

Originally Posted by TheRecycleBin

We no longer sell any hard drives (however we do keep a few for our own use). With HIPPA fines running $250,000 per occurrence for leaked medical info and the time to scrub vs low sales dollars, it doesn't cost justify. We degauss them, remove the board (sell to e-wasted) and sell drive as irony aluminum scrap. When selling on ebay, always check the "sold" listing for actual selling prices and volume. Never base your decision on current listings. If there are a lot of current listings and nothing in sold items, find something else because if it hasn't sold any in 90 days, it isn't worth your time. For us, hard drives fall in this category. We would rather spend our time looking for higher dollar stuff to sell that doesn't carry the liability risk. Look for the odd or unusual stuff.

I have sold probably 30 hard drives all together. Never had an issue YET, but there is always that possibility. And like you said, with fines at $250,000 and worse depending on what happens, not worth it.

Yeah, when I sell anything on ebay, I always go to complete/sold listings and see what the current rates might be.



I think I might just break them down from now on. I dont worry to much over the wiping of drives, and I have to do that anyway for my IT company clients.

Either that, or I will sell in small to medium lots. I know computer shops buy those all the time.

I don't even break them down. I sell them whole to my local buyer.

Originally Posted by scrapping4ever

I would not want to sell used hard drives because they will alwways have information even if you wipe them. This could seriously ruin someones life. If their drive falls into the wrong hands they could have their identity stolen. I know most people who sell them probably don't care but I actually have a conscioness.

If you use one of the better programs that we have talked about then you get the same as a DOD wipe and they say nothing gets past that.