Server Price Breakdown (Inspired by LadyScrapper's "Computer Price Breakdown")

I've been purchasing Compaq Proliant servers at auction over the past couple of weeks and breaking them down. I typically pay $8-$12 apiece and I wanted to find out an actual value of one of these to make sure I wasn't just spinning my wheels. This one had no HDD and I am using Ewasted prices as of the last shipment I had processed on 12-31-13 and my scrap yard's current prices. The gold fingers I sell on ebay and net about $70/lb, so I used that number here.

Gold fingers - 0.5 oz - $2.19
Slot processor - 1.6 oz - $1.00
Sm sckt server board - 1 lb 10 oz - $3.98
Devalued memory - 2.4 oz - $0.83
Mid grade (non-HDD) boards - 12.2 oz - $1.14
Finger boards - 1 lb 5.3 oz - $4.79
Wires - 13.4 oz - $0.63
Motors/windings - 1 lb 6.9 oz - $0.36
Aluminum - 2 lb 7.6 oz - $1.24
Steel/shred - 27 lb 7.7 oz - $2.75

Grand Total - $18.91

I regret not timing myself, but I think I'm knocking these out in about 15-20 minutes. Conservatively if I'm averaging 2.5/hour and buying them at $11 each with no HDD or resellable parts I would be earning about $20/hr. Ehhh. And that's not counting time spent bidding on them, travelling to pick them up, shipping to CFCS, etc. Methinks I need to get faster, buy cheaper, and/or move on.

THats a server right ? Not a tower . Theres a diiference right ?

Right.

HP Support document - HP Support Center

P2 Version

I thought server boards were high grade? I usually pay about $3-$4 AUD for a server unit or PC tower. Either that or about 30 cents a kilo.

Servers!! Love them!! Great way to make and bank $$. Most of all many re-sale items!! Are you getting them in racks. I scrap around 70 server racks a month. Its a shame to toss them. Very nice quality units. Usually filled with a few servers, apc unit and other switches.

If any of you need server memory I have a bunch of good dimms. Up to 32 gb a stick. Cheap.

Aaron. Nice breakdown btw.

wow pretty low yield or, my #s are wrong. I do mostly Military servers for one of the larger contractors, most are Sun, HP and dell, with some IBMs thrown in. IBMs are noted for doing more with less , last year we averaged $35 per unit return or .56 cents per lb. Many of our units are in the 185 to 300 lb range though and we do get the punched hard drives. This does include a % of scavenged units. also our mother boards average over 3 lb ea.

One particular brand and unit (can't disclose any exact description or name and # of the units because of security agreement.) yields over $150 todays prices with 2 to 4 trays of ram 32 sticks per tray. (love these).

P.S. Haven't run this years # yet but just a quick glance shows your numbers may be closer to right. I was using last years numbers not accounting for a 30/40% drop off the top line. We are doing twice the business with higher cost for almost identical money and a very heavy investment in the new Omaha operation.

I get paid higher on server boards than regular motherboards. Not titled high grade in the invoice, though. Don't know how much the difference is, if any. I do know CFCS to be very fair based on my experience and the reported experience of a lot of members here.

Not buying the servers in racks, just 1-5 at a time at auction.

Good day of buying today (for me...) I came up with a total of 19 desktops (no HDDs) for $75 and a box of approximately 20-25 HDDs for $10. Did the first desktop - generic dell model, P4, no HDD and no RAM - total scrapped value $11.03, thanks in large part to the copper heatsink and DVD ROM. I've been selling the DVD ROMs on eBay and netting about $3.00 apiece. Also only took about 10 minutes, maybe less. I'm getting a little more bang for my buck on the desktops versus servers.

Sounds like these are rather small servers. I have done many larger ones with much better returns. As Olddude mentioned 50-60 cents/lb should be easy to attain.
Just scrapped 4 Compaq servers about 100 lbs each, the 4 yielded a total of 50 lbs of high grade boards, 10 lbs clean slot CPU's, 5-6 lbs RAM, etc. I can easily make $30-40+/hour breaking down servers. I also have done a few really big units 1000-1200 lbs each, those make a LOT more $$$!

Yeah, 50-60 cents seems about right to me. Quick estimation of the weight of the material in the server I scrapped was around 36 lbs, so that's right on. I guess I just need to find the bigger servers. (And be able to afford them. Cash flow, baby!)