My Hard drive hoarding is out of control

[thecomputerguy]

Use them as secondary drives in desktops for auto Macrium backups.
These backups for those who had them have saved the clients bacon several times recently.

Until that spinner fails and then stops bootup because of it.....

 

[Porthos]

Until that spinner fails and then stops bootup because of it.....

True, That can happen. Even new drives fail. Easy quick diagnosis and replacement. It is the first thing I try on a non-booting dual-drive system.

 

[Phillip Manning]

We had the same problem, we found a scrap yard with a mettal grinder, who let us grind the Hard Drives for free if they kept the metal, we had to do the feeding in of the hard drives as you could only put in 4 or 5 at a time, so it took some time to do.

 

[lcoughey]

We cover the cost of shipping for anyone who wants to offload their drives. Though, it makes sense to reach out to your preferred data recovery vendor, if not my

We process them as follows:

1. Erase and salvage what we can for parts
2. Crush and recycle those which we cannot erase

Here is a short video of us testing out our newly modified 2 ton arbor press - https://photos.app.goo.gl/E56HGWdyw23od7dA6

 

[Moltuae]

Here is a short video of us testing out our newly modified 2 ton arbor press - https://photos.app.goo.gl/E56HGWdyw23od7dA6

I'd like to see the next video, the one where you realise the drive you just crushed was one sent in for recovery

 

[lcoughey]

I'd like to see the next video, the one where you realise the drive you just crushed was one sent in for recovery

Yikes!

Actually, years ago, we had a drive sent to us from a forensics firm in the US who had done a similar thing. They started to drive down through the drive a few times. Fortunately, the first hole was only through the motor and the second had not completed and had only started to go into the top platter. We got the drive 70% cloned in that case.

 

[sapphirescales]

Just called @300DDR and they wanted no part of this, they are local to me.

As far as I know, they don't really take apart drives or do any advanced recovery. They basically just use a RapidSpar. You need to talk to a big data recovery company that actually fixes drives in order to recover data.

 

[~Wendy~]

Dear lord, what's wrong with you guys? Data recovery companies will gladly pay a flat rate per drive (usually $7-$10). The very idea of paying to get rid of them boggles my mind. 400 drives is $2,800 - $4,000+ worth of inventory. Call some data recovery companies or drive wholesalers (these are people that buy drives in bulk then pick out the gems and sell them for a premium to data recovery companies). Some of these drives are worth hundreds of dollars if you have a rare one. Drive wholesalers are the least picky, but they pay far less (typically $2-$3 per drive).

I have a good relationship with a drive wholesaler. He travels all over the US and physically visits shops to buy their drives. He pays me pretty well too ($5-$6/drive). Pick up an old crappy server with a bunch of hot-swappable drive bays for $100 and let it rip. Or heck, buy a cheap SATA controller card and have ugly cables everywhere. Don't do these one at a time. It's not worth it then.

If you want even more money, list them on eBay. I can get $12-$15/drive on eBay if I sell them in lots of 10-20. I find it's too much of a pain in the butt though to deal with a bunch of different buyers, BUT you can contact buyers outside of eBay AFTER the sale is complete and ask if they're interested in buying from you on a regular basis. I can't tell you how many great business relationships I've started this way.


I agree that desktop hard drives still have their place for backup purposes, but I'd be wary of installing used drives in client's systems. I mean, I did it back in 2011 with those hard drive shortages and it worked out surprisingly well, but still...

But aren't you still letting client information loose in the wild?

Maybe you can pay a student or disabled worker minimum wage to sit at the table and DBAN them.

 

[sapphirescales]

But aren't you still letting client information loose in the wild?

Maybe you can pay a student or disabled worker minimum wage to sit at the table and DBAN them.

My station can do 8x drives at a time. Just have an employee check on it every once in a while. You don't need someone manning the wiping station at all times.

 

[SAFCasper]

My station can do 8x drives at a time. Just have an employee check on it every once in a while. You don't need someone manning the wiping station at all times.

Yep we do a similar thing on a smaller scale these days. Learned our lesson from last time they built up.

Basic Micro PC in a corner with a 2-bay USB dock attached. Throw in 2 drives and walk away. Check back the next day to swap over for another 2 drives. Takes no time at all and is enough to keep on top of things.

If needed we could easily build a wiping monster with something like a used LSI SAS 9201 from ebay and some SFF-8087 cables for 12x SATA connections. I suggest that model because we use Active@ Killdisk and it's what they recommended us.

 

[britechguy]

I laugh at the everything-that's-not-cutting-edge-is-worthless mentality too. That's just not the right answer for a lot of folks.

And on this, if on very little else, we're entirely in agreement. My jaw drops, repeatedly, at the "I charge a premium if I have to touch a machine with a HDD!," declarations. These still make up the majority of the machines I service, and it's not the storage that needs fixing in most cases.

 

[Porthos]

My jaw drops, repeatedly, at the "I charge a premium if I have to touch a machine with a HDD!," declarations. These still make up the majority of the machines I service, and it's not the storage that needs fixing in most cases.

But computers with spinners take longer to do. If you want to be paid for your time you need to charge more if it takes longer to do when you are flat-rate.
If you charge hourly, you get paid the extra time already.

 

[britechguy]

@Porthos,

I've said many times that I do charge hourly. As far as it taking longer for HDDs, that really depends on what it is you're doing, but I agree that if you're charging flat-rate you need to account for "worst case" in your flat rates.

When I see, "charge a premium," my mind doesn't go to flat rate, though one could have different flat rates depending on hardware specs and if the HDD one is higher that would be "charging a premium."

 

[Porthos]

Well, I would want to be compensated differently for data backup, OS install from, and to a HDD.

 

[britechguy]

Well, I would want to be compensated differently for data backup, OS install from, and to a HDD.

One of the reasons I charge for time spent, with a one hour minimum, then billed in 15-minute increments after the first hour.

For the clientele I serve, most service calls are seldom "just about" what the original presenting issue is. There is virtually always either an, "Oh, while I have you here," (sometimes several) or I see something really wrong that I feel I must identify to the computer owner and propose it be corrected, and most often they will agree to that.

I've had what would be a 1-hour or under service call were it to have stuck to only the presenting issue that ended up being 3 to 5 hours (3 being not uncommon and 5 being very unusual).

 

[mraikes]

I had a similar problem, overwhelmed by drives destined for destruction, and not enough time, energy or interest in using my traditional method of a big hammer.

So I bought one of these: https://purelev.com/

Yeah, it's a little pricey, but it works as advertised, quickly and easily. I went through my drives 20-30 at a time and knocked out the job.

 

[Haole Boy]

So I bought one of these: https://purelev.com/

I bought one also. Does a great job. But then I asked here in the forum and another data recovery guy said I could ship him the drives as he needs them for spare parts. Haven't done it as I don't trust any shipper to not lose a box and then my customer's data is available to someone unknown.

I do like the idea of setting up a cheap PC with a USB dock to do erasing. But what do you do with the disks that have access issues (bad blocks)?

Would just removing the printed circuit board be sufficient to provide security while shipping?

Harry Z

 

[britechguy]

Haven't done it as I don't trust any shipper to not lose a box and then my customer's data is available to someone unknown.

I expect service providers to take reasonable precautions. Given the millions of packages, many of which contain items of much greater value and rarity than the random used HDD and the data on it, that are shipped without incident, I think you're being perfectly responsible if you choose to ship to a disposal facility.

 

[SAFCasper]

I bought one also. Does a great job. But then I asked here in the forum and another data recovery guy said I could ship him the drives as he needs them for spare parts. Haven't done it as I don't trust any shipper to not lose a box and then my customer's data is available to someone unknown.

I do like the idea of setting up a cheap PC with a USB dock to do erasing. But what do you do with the disks that have access issues (bad blocks)?

Would just removing the printed circuit board be sufficient to provide security while shipping?

Harry Z

Drives that are failing, bad blocks etc, we just go the traditional route. Hammer, drill, maybe a pickaxe depending how I'm feeling.

Removing the circuit board doesn't clear any data, it just removes easy access to it. Find a replacement PCB from an identical model = full access to the data in most cases.

 

[pcpete]

maybe we are careless, but two hard hits with a hammer and call it good. at that point in theory someone with enough time and money may be able to do a recovery, but for all practical purposes, no. Nobody is going to salvage these remains, then send them to a professional, pay a professional rate to maybe recover some random files that may or may not have any value.