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 Post subject: Hard drives
PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 7:40 am 

Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 5:03 pm
Posts: 254
Got prob 40 hard drives. Pulled the boards. Now what? It doesn't sound like there's a ton of value in a total breakdown and I'd be upside down sending them to boardsort. Local yard prob takes them as irony aluminum, right? Would I need to break down any further to get that rate?


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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:43 pm 

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:59 am
Posts: 30
I run a scrap yard and buy them as irony all the time.


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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:47 pm 
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Whole; that’s the right spot. Or “low engine” is a popular category name as well. Like car engines.

It’s a sad waist of high grade aluminium though in doing so.
The single reason more than any other for breaking down desktop hard drives is the base shell. The shell is aluminium, manganese, or magnesium. Any of the three; it’s also always (for any name brand drive) a VERY high grade. As close to pure as you can get.
I currently get $0.65 per lb for them where my regular clean sheet it 40 cents. Those aren’t walk in prices but the spread is the same.

There’s multiple threads on breaking them down if you want to look at considering doing so. Including breakdown photos and time guides.

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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:26 pm 

Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 5:03 pm
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lostinlodos wrote:
Whole; that’s the right spot. Or “low engine” is a popular category name as well. Like car engines.

It’s a sad waist of high grade aluminium though in doing so.
The single reason more than any other for breaking down desktop hard drives is the base shell. The shell is aluminium, manganese, or magnesium. Any of the three; it’s also always (for any name brand drive) a VERY high grade. As close to pure as you can get.
I currently get $0.65 per lb for them where my regular clean sheet it 40 cents. Those aren’t walk in prices but the spread is the same.

There’s multiple threads on breaking them down if you want to look at considering doing so. Including breakdown photos and time guides.


My local yard has never priced anything other than a single AL rate -- sheet, cast, etc all go as the same Aluminum rate...so I'm not sure it would matter - for me - if it's a high grade aluminum. The only other thing I can think of is they have a diecast category...would that maybe be what the base shell would fall under?


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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:17 pm 

Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:59 am
Posts: 30
If you don't tell your yard what you have, they are going to buy it as sheet al. They should at least have a clip and extrusion pricing.


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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 6:11 pm 
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Unfortunately at the lower levels of the industry two rate classes are common: clean and dirty.
For an example a bare hard drive base would be clean, a whole hard drive dirty; being filled with non aluminium parts.

cast; is a misnomer.
Die cast is always a lower value than extrusion. There’s also pour casting and plastic casting which is very close to to sheet rates.
Spin casting uses centrifugal force and is used to make hard drive platters, switch bases. And sometimes custom length and girth Al wire and is often worth More than sheet.
Most modern hard drives are actually stamp cut. Or “stamped”.
Alas; none of that matters if they only have one class.

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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 4:24 pm 

Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:25 am
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My husband and I own a scrap yard. I take apart the hard drives completely. The body of the hard drive is cast aluminum at our plant, I sell the platters, the magnets, and the arms of the hard drives on ebay as I get more for them than just recycling prices, the spacers are either aluminum clip, or stainless, you will be able to tell by the weight. Clip is raw aluminum, nothing else attached to the material, stainless is a bit heavier, but they are usually clip (MLC).

The top of the hard drive varies (hard drive cover), if it sticks to a magnet, I found Seagate usually does, it is steel, if not, it can be dirty stainless or dirty sheet, this will depend on if the top of the hard drive case is easy to scratch which aluminum is then it is dirty sheet, or if you really don't see the scratch at all, it's dirty stainless and I mean dirty because there is a fill of some type between the layers of the metals that make up of the hard drive cover. If there is no fill between the layers and it is aluminum than it can be clean sheet even with the sticker, but ask at your plant to see what their ratio is for sheet material. Now I know i just confused you even more, my husband has been managing recycling metals for over 27 years, for me it is about 2, it is a lot to learn but you catch on as you go along.

So if you are selling them as steel you are wasting your money, honestly, also, they really are not steel they are more of a Breakage as the majority of the materials are an aluminum type metal. So if someone is offering you steel than they might not have a breakage price, but always ask. If I only took the boards off I would put them in my breakage box, this pays higher than steel.


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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:53 pm 
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Just a quick FYI for what space said; top covers are usually a two ply metal. One layer is stainless. The other can be aluminium or stainless.

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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:06 pm 
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Here we go. You can click on me right here to see a photo breakdown of a drive from whole to bare parts.

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 Post subject: Re: Hard drives
PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:28 pm 

Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:25 am
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lostinlodos wrote:
Just a quick FYI for what space said; top covers are usually a two ply metal. One layer is stainless. The other can be aluminium or stainless.

Does anyone know what is in the middle of the pieces, it is a gel of some type?


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