I totally disassembled about 20 HDDs thinking I could sell the parts on eBay but it's taking too long. I want to unload the stuff. Would Boardsort buy the motors, arms, and Clean cast aluminum cases if I shipped them with a normal shipment?

Boardsort would buy the cases and the logic board. The cost of shipping for the cases is higher than the pay out. Better to sell them to your local scrap yard. Only ship the logic boards whenever you have a good bunch of other boards to make your cost effective.

Boardsort buys the boards and platters.
The plastic connection inside with the pins goes in your gold connectors pile. They're either gold plated steel or clean silver on copper.

The rest they do not. Try a local yard. Use iscrapapp to find one near by. (I love that app).
And know what you're bringing them.

The shell is #1 al

the motors are hycb (high yeald copper bearing material) because they're aluminium not steel cases and contains gold.

The arms are usually #1 or #2 Al, and Occasionally magnesium. Pop the copper Aluminium or silver spool off the back for a separate price out.

The spindle is al or magnesium.

The top plate (cover) is #2 al because it's two layers one al and one stainless. It's not worth separation.


Most yards have a minimum (usually ½ lb) but if they purchase precious metals (pm/pmc) you should be able to go down to ounces.
You need to tip the scale enough to register and get paid. ;)
so find out by calling what the minimum weight is and the increments.

For future reference pull the board off for Boardsort and sell the rest in its entirety to a local yard for #2 al. Many reputable yards often even give you a bump up a few cents for them. Mine gives me a manual tare of -1 for an extra pound because of the bit of gold. Don't be afraid to ask.

Wow, Thanks everyone! I already sold the HDD logic boards to Boardsort. I just had the HDDs and figured I'd do something with them.

I wonder if it's a better rate of return to just ship Boardsort the whole HDDs in the future?

no its better to sell boardsort the board and the rest to your local yard
this is my experience
Hard Drive without Board @ $0.35 per lb. -.40 to.80 a lb for shipping
Hard Drive with Board @ $0.70 per lb. - .40 to.80 a lb for shipping
the average weight of sata/ide boards are about 1 oz each give or take some
so thats about 50 cents ... and a pound of those are currently 7.50 - .40 to.80 a lb for shipping a profit of 6.00+ easily..

evilrick81 has it.
Sell the boards to boardsort. They will get you 40c-$1 or so depending on type and size.

Sell the drives locally and skip Breaking them down further. Like i said above/below gently ask for a price bump. But i average 40-55c locally for the drives with the proverbial foot on the scale from them. That's with aluminium al sheet down to 35c as of Thursday.

Update.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1220


I broke down a Seagate barracuda. I currently now have weights in general so tomorrow morning after i bring my scrap loads I'll have real prices values to go with them and break out real world numbers
I'll post a thread in the business section and give a link here.
I chose the barracuda because it's the biggest baddest meanest modern (3½ inch ½height) drive still in use. (Streaming media/Android tv/cable dvr/etc) a best case scenario.