What rate do you pay for hard drive cases that are fully depopulated?

One side, the back-shell, would be cast aluminum.

The top could be a plethora of different metals.

I toss the tops in light shred as I don’t have the desire to guess what two metals might be sandwiched together.

Not certain what your proximity to BS is, but shipping the back-shells in for cast aluminum rate would be a money losing proposition. A local yard would be your best bet.

Platters are typically aluminum as well. Laptop HD platters are typically glass.

There’s a payout button at the top of the BS homepage. Click on it. Scroll down to the bottom for scrap metal prices.

99% of the cases for 3.5” and smaller drives are aluminium.

5.25 and larger cases can be aluminium, magnesium, zinc, or manganese.

The tops are nearly always multi ply. Be it a single aluminium cover with small nickel shields or two or more layers of different metals. One always being aluminium.

Just toss covers in shred. I’ve toyed with them for decades and still haven’t come up with a separation method that doesn’t cost more than the materials, or take half an hour of bending.

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42 6F 61 72 64 73 6F 72 74 2E 63 6F 6D

The multi ply for me, if I can bend a corner usually only takes a flathead screwdriver and/or pair of needlenose pliers to separate. I check magnetism before fully separating to make sure the material is different and then pry with the screwdriver or twist the metal around the needlenose to fully separate. End up with a curly-cue piece of metal which can look interesting for about 2 seconds before tossing it in the appropriate bin.

I normally sell the rings that hold the platters on ebay under arts and crafts/ robotics once I have enough to fill a small flat rate box. I'll throw in any aluminum standoffs/odds and ends as a bonus from other scrap.

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

The aluminium casings are actually a forging and not cast. The forgings are made from an extrusion. So, they should be scrappable as clean extrusion assuming they are completely clean. In our local yard, clean extrusion is 31 cents per pound more than cast aluminum, so it is definitely better to go for the extrusion rate.

Occasionally there is a multi ply cover that seems to be all stainless. Neither layer is magnetic or aluminum and both layers are hard. After checking them, our yard accepts them as such.

Thanks for the responses. I have all the bottoms separated and eventually plan a drop off trip with other e-scrap.