Hard drive disposal

[ramicio]

I don't like to waste stuff by just throwing it away. Nor do I want to take them apart myself for raw materials. I don't scrap metals, so 3 hard drives worth of materials would be worthless to try to get money out of. I'd rather send them to WD for them to be able to refurbish, but of course even if I could do that they would doubtfully give me any money for them. What can I do to get rid of these things without total loss? I also don't care about data privacy. All that's on them is media files. I keep personal information in my brain, not in a physical format that can be copied somehow.

[nurbs]

Selling them is always an option. You can try the usual places like eBay, but I'd recommend you check if there is a local website for the area you live in. I personally use a site that's free of charge and centered on the town I live in and I've had good experiences with that. Most of the time when I wanted to get rid of something it only took a couple of days and it's convenient that you don't have to mail things but instead just exchange them directly with the buyer.

[Ghitulescu]

Depending on your country, there are disposal rules and you may need either to bring them to a place or to have them collected for you.
It would keep them. For instance two of my SAT receivers and a music player still use IDE drives, these are scarce now.

[ramicio]

They are SATA drives, and they are bad. They are only a few years old so I feel like I'm owed something because they didn't last very long at all.

[Ghitulescu]

Let me then tell you one of the dirtiest secrets of the industry: these are never reused, at least not as parts, bur they are compressed and the "nobel" metals are extracted and reused. That's such a waste of energy and materials you can't imagine. The companies just don't care about energy, waste, resources and so on. This burden is as alwyas yours, us. Just sleep well thinking that some children in India or Africa will recover this "elektroschrott" for you.

[ramicio]

Yeah, OK. Whatever a noble metal is I have no idea, too. There are such things as refurbished products. I don't know what kind of world you live in if you've never seen them.

[hello_hello]

Let me then tell you one of the dirtiest secrets of the industry: these are never reused, at least not as parts, bur they are compressed and the "nobel" metals are extracted and reused. That's such a waste of energy and materials you can't imagine. The companies just don't care about energy, waste, resources and so on. This burden is as alwyas yours, us. Just sleep well thinking that some children in India or Africa will recover this "elektroschrott" for you.

Who whispered that dirty little secret in your ear?
According to this recycling company, which don't seem to send old parts to Africa or India for recycling:
http://www.newtechrecycling.com/disposal/computer-recycling/computer-recycling.html
"Did you know that the unauthorized disposal of computers, laptops, desktops, mainframes, servers and electronic equipment is illegal? Legislation now makes it mandatory to recycle computers, monitors and electronic equipment through approved facilities."
Of course that's no doubt only applicable according to where you live.

However the same company claims recycling hard drives on it's own wouldn't be profitable so they combine it with a secure data destruction service.
Maybe it's less to do with companies not caring about energy waste and more to do with the law? Although it doesn't quite make sense that a company could profit from "such a waste of energy and materials" if it's less wasteful and therefore cheaper to produce a hard drive from scratch instead of recycled parts.

According to this hard drive recycling company, which don't seem to ship the hard drives to Africa or India for recycling either:
http://www.freeharddriverecycling.com/
"* Each hard drive contains approximately one pound of aluminum
* Recycling one hard drive saves enough energy to:
o light a 100 watt bulb for 134 hours, or
o run your television for 102 hours or
o the energy equivalent of 1.5 gallons of gasoline
* Recycling aluminum is 95% more energy efficient than producing aluminum from ore
* Recycling aluminum results in 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution than producing aluminum from ore"

Where did you get your information to the contrary?

[ramicio]

It will always be cheaper for a company to recycle materials than to just buy them new out of the ground. Machined metal shavings get sent back to the metal supplier to smelt again. Say WD takes my old hard drives. They could tear them down, and sell them back to their aluminum supplier they send their shavings back to. An oil change shop I worked in would get money for the waste oil because it's a fuel. We also saved some because any bit of hot water or heat at the site was from burned waste oil. When it comes to toxic materials, then yes, you may be right, as those materials cost money to get rid of, but metals are commodities, not toxic by-products. All these drives need are new platters.

[Ghitulescu]

Who whispered that dirty little secret in your ear?
According to this recycling company, which don't seem to send old parts to Africa or India for recycling:
http://www.newtechrecycling.com/disposal/computer-recycling/computer-recycling.html
"Did you know that the unauthorized disposal of computers, laptops, desktops, mainframes, servers and electronic equipment is illegal? Legislation now makes it mandatory to recycle computers, monitors and electronic equipment through approved facilities."
Of course that's no doubt only applicable according to where you live.

However the same company claims recycling hard drives on it's own wouldn't be profitable so they combine it with a secure data destruction service.
Maybe it's less to do with companies not caring about energy waste and more to do with the law? Although it doesn't quite make sense that a company could profit from "such a waste of energy and materials" if it's less wasteful and therefore cheaper to produce a hard drive from scratch instead of recycled parts.

According to this hard drive recycling company, which don't seem to ship the hard drives to Africa or India for recycling either:
http://www.freeharddriverecycling.com/
"* Each hard drive contains approximately one pound of aluminum
* Recycling one hard drive saves enough energy to:
o light a 100 watt bulb for 134 hours, or
o run your television for 102 hours or
o the energy equivalent of 1.5 gallons of gasoline
* Recycling aluminum is 95% more energy efficient than producing aluminum from ore
* Recycling aluminum results in 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution than producing aluminum from ore"

Where did you get your information to the contrary?

Is this a joke, a wish or simply a naïveness? Or maybe you're quoting from Zeitgeist (the movie)?

It's the money that that drives the industry.
And there were several scandals concerning "destruction of data" by those "recyclers", in particular with subcontractors to subcontractors and so on and government property, like laptops or old computers. Which HDDs have been sold completely unerased, ie not deleted and not destroyed as stipulated by laws and contracts, but sold to get an additional buck. And I'm not talking here about Somalia, but countries like US.

[ramicio]

Where do you get this stuff? How did this turn into me asking what to do with my old hard drives to save material and maybe make a little money to you thinking there is some huge hard drive non-destruction conspiracy? The US government would be the last people to let hard drives escape with data intact.

[Ghitulescu]

Or make sure you haven't heard of. :)

One recent case happened in Germany.

[ramicio]

Well yay for Germany. Can this thread get back to the topic?

[hello_hello]

Is this a joke, a wish or simply a naïveness? Or maybe you're quoting from Zeitgeist (the movie)?

No I'm just quoting the only information I could find regarding the efficiency and energy savings when recycling material from hard drives, in comparison to using raw materials.
Where is your information coming from? Urban myth?

It's the money that that drives the industry.

Which is the same thing which drives any industry. It doesn't prove anything one way or another.

And there were several scandals concerning "destruction of data" by those "recyclers", in particular with subcontractors to subcontractors and so on and government property, like laptops or old computers. Which HDDs have been sold completely unerased, ie not deleted and not destroyed as stipulated by laws and contracts, but sold to get an additional buck. And I'm not talking here about Somalia, but countries like US.

Even if I take your word for that being true, in what way does it show it's energy wasteful to recycle a drive, or show where those drives are being recycled? The subject of the thread is hard drive disposal, not reliable destruction of data or the greed of a few companies given the responsibility of ensuring it's destruction.
You claimed recycling hard drives for materials is a waste of energy and materials, and it's done by children in India or Africa. Obviously I made the mistake of showing where one recycling company claims data destruction allows their recycling business to be economically viable (do you remember it's the money that drives the industry?) and you've used it as an opportunity to avoid answering the question as to how you know your claims are true.

[ramicio]

All i care about is making sure the stuff gets recycled. I don't care about data being destroyed. The platters are junk, anyway.

[[P]ako]

They are SATA drives, and they are bad. They are only a few years old so I feel like I'm owed something because they didn't last very long at all.

IMO, if a hard drive has passed the 3rd year old mark, it has fulfilled its job. Though, I tend to change my system drive more often than that (every two years). I use the three year mark as a personal policy to avoid data loss, the longer you keep a drive the highest the possibility of a "disaster". My old drives go to my brothers.


All i care about is making sure the stuff gets recycled. I don't care about data being destroyed. The platters are junk, anyway.

I'd suggest to discard them as per local laws or if your town has a recycling program take them there. I doubt WD would take them back for refurbishing, as you said the platters are junk, they are likely to be destroyed if they even take them back.

Selling them through Ebay is an alternative, if you find people who buy old hard drives not because of the platters but for the boards (for data recovery, for example). You may want to check whether there are any recovery data businesses around where you live, I am sure they will take them for free.

[ramicio]

3 years is pathetic. Platters can be replaced. Do you think they keep the same platters in refurbished drives? What use would anyone have for just the boards? I don't need to deal with eBay BS and pay money to sell something I know isn't going to sell.

[CWR03]

3 years is pathetic. Platters can be replaced. Do you think they keep the same platters in refurbished drives? What use would anyone have for just the boards? I don't need to deal with eBay BS and pay money to sell something I know isn't going to sell.
How much are you expecting to get out of used hard drives that you yourself perceive as worthless?

I agree that eBay is the most likely route to recoup a little money. Even the crap that people sell for almost nothing has a significant mark-up in the postage.

[ramicio]

I expect more than 3 years of service out of a NEW hard drive...

[hello_hello]

What use would anyone have for just the boards? I don't need to deal with eBay BS and pay money to sell something I know isn't going to sell.

When the controller/board dies on an otherwise healthy hard drive, people sometimes replace them from an identical model in order to retrieve data. Or to continue using the drive.

I expect more than 3 years of service out of a NEW hard drive...

Maybe you need to adjust your expectations. Or send a stern email to the manufacturer of your dead drives. Hard drives last, on average, 3 to 5 years. Of course it also depends on how much they're used, which is why I guess it's a rough average.

If memory serves me correctly, when Google studied hard drive life expectancy they found particular models have particular life expectancies. For instance model "A" from manufacturer "A" might have a different life expectancy to model "B" from manufacturer "A" and different again to model "C" from manufacturer "C". I've bought identical drives in the past and two or three years later they've died within a month or so of each other. If both your drives are the same model and the same age then you probably bought a model which lasts around three years. That's life.

[CWR03]

I expect more than 3 years of service out of a NEW hard drive...
Now you're just whining. It doesn't appear you're interested in discussing options.

Buy hard drives with a 5 year warranty, then if they fail in 3 years you can get a replacement and sell them on eBay.

[ramicio]

Warranties are a blatant scam. It's just the manufacturer saying "We stand behind our product, but only if you give us more money beyond the price of the product, and there are stipulations, and time limits." Anyone who thinks a warranty isn't a scam is just dumb and thinks insurance is a good idea, too. A real company stands behind their products. If you have some wrench from Sears that's 50 years old and you break it today, it will get replaced for free, today, no questions. That's good business.

[Ghitulescu]

Indeed, warranties are a sort of collecting the money in advance, like insurances, for "that" case ... and when it arrives (if it arrives) they prove it's your fault, or replace it after negotiations. But your data is lost. I never considered warranties as something more than an indication of how long the life expectancy might be.

I wouldn't go so far to claim that a 50 years old still be covered by warranty, but exceptions might exist.

[ramicio]

I wouldn't go so far to claim that a 50 years old still be covered by warranty, but exceptions might exist.

You have no idea what Sears is...Craftsman tools. Snap-on offers lifetime warranties, too. Not a legal (25-year) lifetime, but a literal lifetime. There are stipulations, like drill bits, blades, and other wear-items (really only stuff that abrades) are not warranted, but are at least replaceable without having to buy the whole tool.

3-5 years is pathetic. Maybe some better sealing should be done to drives to keep particles out of there. Maybe bearings should be fluid-based so one can just do simple fluid-change maintenance to a hard drive to keep the bearings fresh, too.

[Ghitulescu]

Without departing from the OT I would like to say that sometimes the advances in technique would nevertheless make some items morally obsolete, even before their term, so why bother, would one still use a 8.2 GB HDD only 10 years old (except for special uses)? Why using good parts and qualified workmen, when the HDD would be replaced after 3 years (5 for pro models)? To make them more expensive than the competition with no gain?

[ramicio]

Just because something is obsolete in industry doesn't mean consumers should suffer from the same obsolescence. Industry has the cash to go an upgrade shit all the time. People don't.

[hello_hello]

ramico, you're sounding more like a child with a broken toy than an adult who's hard drive has worn out, and making ridiculous comparisons between a wrench and a hard drive only makes it seem more that way.

3-5 years is pathetic. Maybe some better sealing should be done to drives to keep particles out of there. Maybe bearings should be fluid-based so one can just do simple fluid-change maintenance to a hard drive to keep the bearings fresh, too.

Maybe the manufacturers should also sprinkle the drives with a more generous amount of fairy dust?

I guess when you replace your current drives you'll have the choice between mechanical models, which will probably last 3 to 5 years, or solid state drives which have no moving parts and will probably last much longer. I assume you'll be replacing your current drives with SSDs despite their much higher cost per MB (given longevity is your main criteria) and obviously you're not naive enough to believe the extra longevity doesn't come at a price regardless of the type of drive, so let us know which SSDs you choose and what you think of their performance.

[ramicio]

I already bought an SSD. They are NOT a good choice for a drive that sees a lot of data changing. When they are actually used for writes like hard disks are they don't last long at all. I bought it for the sole purpose of installing Windows on, for performance. It's pretty pathetic they can even call SSDs solid state seeing as how they don't really hold comparable longevity compared to mechanical drives. The same goes for them developing displays with OLEDs instead of semiconductor LEDs. Just ass-backwards if you ask me. Stay out of this thread if you can't contribute to my original question and just want to call me a baby. That goes for everyone who just wants to bash me instead of giving me real insight. I didn't insult anyone here before this post. I would ask that others don't act like actual children, and don't call me names.

[hello_hello]

I already bought an SSD. They are NOT a good choice for a drive that sees a lot of data changing. When they are actually used for writes like hard disks are they don't last long at all. I bought it for the sole purpose of installing Windows on, for performance. It's pretty pathetic they can even call SSDs solid state seeing as how they don't really hold comparable longevity compared to mechanical drives.

Sounds like it might have been a poor choice then, when you could have bought a pair of mechanical drives which would have lasted longer, offered far more storage capacity for the price, and when run in a RAID configuration would have offered similar performance.

Debunking Misconceptions in SSD Longevity (http://www.bitmicro.com/press_resources_debunking.php)
Toshiba studies laptop write rates confirming SSD longevity (http://silvertonconsulting.com/blog/2010/01/08/toshiba-studies-laptop-write-rates-confirming-ssd-longevity/)
Back in 2008, Intel claimed you could write 100GB per day to their drives for 5 years before they'd wear out. Of course as capacities increase, writing the same amount of data per day will wear the drive out more slowly.
http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/39204-intel-claims-ssd-superiority-tries-to-dispel-myths
Where are you getting your information regarding SSD longevity?

Stay out of this thread if you can't contribute to my original question and just want to call me a baby.

Nobody called you a baby, but if I think a comparison between a wrench and a hard drive sounds childish, I'll say so.

[Ghitulescu]

Just because something is obsolete in industry doesn't mean consumers should suffer from the same obsolescence. Industry has the cash to go an upgrade shit all the time. People don't.

I think you missed the point, I was talking about the industry as the provider (goods and technology), not as a consumer.

If they decide to go with SSD, who's gonna manufacture magnetic HDDs, you? When Kodak dropped Super8 (last year IIRC), that's it, analogue video came to an end. Who cares if you still have and want to use the supercallifragi... camera you paid your wage for 3 years? Wanna film, go digital!

That was the point.

[netmask]

When I have a load of transformers and old hard drives - anything with a lot of metal I flog them to a local metal buyer. They get melted down and noble metals like gold and silver extracted etc etc. The Chinese and Indians do buy a lot of junk like old tires etc to strip the metal out. I make sure I wreck the hard drives first for privacy issues.

[ramicio]

Scrap yards here only pay people by hundreds of LBs. Precious metal is more worthwhile keeping. It would also cost more for a normal person to get silver or gold out of a hard drive than the quantity you get is worth.