[SOLVED] Possible to sell older hard drives?

[paradoxeternal]

My father ran his own computer consulting business for many years (and introduced me to a lot about tech and computer hardware). He passed away last year, and while he did not leave much behind, I did find a few stacks of hard drives in his basement. I know he used to use them for everything from personal computers to servers for his clients, who were mostly small businesses in the tri-state area. Most of these hard drives were purchased, used, then returned to him for one reason or another. Many are still in their packaging.

The hard drive manufacturing dates range from 2011 to 2018, mostly western digital or seagate, mostly 1-2 TB in size. Over the past few months, I've been checking each one with HWinfo, formatting the ones that had data on them, and doing a full drive wipe on each with CCleaner. I'm now in the process of recording all the info (drive size, manufacturing date, serial number, etc.) My cousin mentioned that there's a market for used/older hard drives that are still in good condition. Is this true? And if so, are there specific sites I could sell to or specific places I could take the hard drives to? If this isn't a thin, I'd rather just take them to get recycled if that's the case, but I wouldn't mind some extra cash from selling them. I have no other need for them and don't work in the networking business.

 

[USAFRet]

On ebay, used 1TB HDD are showing $15-$20, Sold/Completed listings.
2TB, maybe $25.

And the shipping cost and ebay/paypal fees come out of that $15-$25.

Is that worth your time?

Also, I would not let these out into the wild without a pass with DBAN. Not just CCleaner.

 

[alceryes]

My only concern would be recovery of data, possibly sensitive client data, if these hard drives are obtained by bad actors. With formats and using CCleaner Drive Wiper the chances are very slim to none though.

Your best bet may be to contact other local shops in your area and ask them if they want to buy the whole stock of used but fully functional drives. You won't make nearly as much as selling them indivually, but it's much less work that you'll have to do.

 

[TerryLaze]

You can sell them through any means you can sell anything used, e-bay is an option but local papers facebook groups and similar would be better or at least easier and cheaper for all, hand in hand meet somewhere publicly and that's it.
They don't go for a lot but if you have a lot of them it might be worth it.

 

[paradoxeternal]

On ebay, used 1TB HDD are showing $15-$20, Sold/Completed listings.
2TB, maybe $25.

And the shipping cost and ebay/paypal fees come out of that $15-$25.

Is that worth your time?

Also, I would not let these out into the wild without a pass with DBAN. Not just CCleaner.

I've got 40 of them, so may not be worth selling each individually on eBay, but other options may work. I'll look into DBAN, thank you for the recommendation.

My only concern would be recovery of data, possibly sensitive client data, if these hard drives are obtained by bad actors. With formats and using CCleaner Drive Wiper the chances are very slim to none though.

Your best bet may be to contact other local shops in your area and ask them if they want to buy the whole stock of used but fully functional drives. You won't make nearly as much as selling them indivually, but it's much less work that you'll have to do.

I googled and didn't see many local hardware stores but I will call the couple that popped up.

You can sell them through any means you can sell anything used, e-bay is an option but local papers facebook groups and similar would be better or at least easier and cheaper for all, hand in hand meet somewhere publicly and that's it.
They don't go for a lot but if you have a lot of them it might be worth it.

No local groups but there looks like a larger global group on FB. I'll keep that as a last resort.