How much do you all pay for hard drive destruction?
Posted by Enferrari@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 103 comments
I started an ewaste recycling company and got certified to R2v3 and ISO 27001 etc and trying to keep things fair without pricing myself out of business. I know the larger players charge an arm and a leg.
For hard drive destruction, I've priced it at $10/ loose drive $20 per drive we must remove from a computer etc.
For pickup fees, I priced it at $200 flat-rate for a box truck roll out to cover overhead. Drop-off service is free of course.
Curious your thoughts and any feedback on the process on things you liked and didn't like about your current vendor so I can work on that.
I try to offset the costs of the destruction by incorporating equipment buybacks but I set the cutline at 3 years old or newer devices.
Thanks
mobileaccountuser@reddit
a metal shedder is cheaper
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Like $30K+
-King-K-Rool-@reddit
Nothing, they come pick everything up for free. I think youve got the wrong idea for your profit model. The waste company we use takes everything for free, gives free certificates of destruction, etc, because what theyre actually after is the CPU's. When I asked the guy what they do with them he said they have them melted down for the platinum and thats where they make like 90% of their money
MrSanford@reddit
lol, that dude is full of shit.
-King-K-Rool-@reddit
Lol whether hes full of shit or not a dont know what they do with them but I do know they pick our shit up for free on the condition that theres CPU's, even old ass ones.
MrSanford@reddit
There's a lot of gold in old ass CPU's. More platinum in hard drives than CPU's though
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Yeah lol. RAM is crazy right now at $40/pound for scrap because of the gold pins. but to get a pound of RAM takes quite a few chips. Scrapping is a last resort for a reason.
MrSanford@reddit
I don't know about last resort. I scrap around 1,000 pounds a year of ram alone.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
I mean testing + reuse gets you wayyyy more recovery.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
The profit model works fine for larger enterprises as I haven't had any issues there as their equipment is newer so it's always a net positive. For SMEs I see some pushback and I think the difference is they don't budget for a truly secure vendor and so they call any free ewaste company (because their computers are like 5-7 years old) but don't follow up on where the material is being downstreamed to.
huntingboi89@reddit
As others have said, very normal not to pay for this.
For the company I use in Utah, this is the process: Let ewaste build up (usually enough to crowd a cubicle), ask for a pickup, they schedule a time with me and come out, pick up for free, ask if I need COD’s and give them to me if so.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Interesting. Im assuming they aren't certified though, right?
stackjr@reddit
They are all certified companies, dude. You are desperately trying to justify your pricing after seeing that it's free for everyone else. That's not a good look.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
They clearly aren't dude. I checked half of them and there was no environmental certs just data security.
disposeable1200@reddit
We don't pay, ever.
Worst case we send a load of crap and they just take it for free.
Best case we give them hardware they can sell on, etc and they pay us back some money.
We get all transfer paperwork, secure erasure certification - they run Blanco and if that fails, then it's shredded.
They're ISO 270001 and ADISA Level 3.
There's been like 4 suppliers I've used and they all do this exactly the same.
The hardware resale is where they're making money - you've seen the RAM and SSD prices right?
Your business model just sucks TBH I wouldn't ever pay.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
ADISA and ISO 27001 aren't recycling standards, they're only data security standards. Secondly, if a client mandates physical destruction with serialized reporting, that negates the resale value of those components. And a DDR3 laptop isn't worth the resale value or remarketing effort - nor are you allowed to sell untested equipment per R2v3 and E-stewards. I realize now the certifications are better suited for Fortune 500 and larger enterprises. Smaller businesses typically don't value the environmental compliance.
disposeable1200@reddit
Yeah I'm not in the USA.
Need to stop with the mindset that everyone is following USA standards and policies
R2v3 and E-stewards don't apply here as mandatory, I'd never even heard of them till today.
I've just had a look at our supplier, they have:
Environment agency waste carrier license Valpak certified as zero waste to landfill Environment permit from the environment agency ISO 14001 BSI Kitemarks - certified remanufacturer and certified refurbisher
Then they've also got ecovadis sustainability audits, part of the government digital sustainability alliance and some other stuff
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
e-waste is an international problem not a USA one. e-stewards and R2v3 are international standards. Good for you - clearly our services are not tailored to your smaller organization.
disposeable1200@reddit
I literally get free money to put towards hardware refreshes
I just pile the kit up in a store room and call them up once a quarter and they clear the entire room
We work on a 5 year lifecycle, and I got several thousand back for my last collection of like 65 laptops
Doesn't hurt to be using one of the largest suppliers in the country eh.. oh and they're still free!
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Good for you, I dont get why youre so invested in my business and why I charge. It's none of your business. Ill charge what I feel like
TinderSubThrowAway@reddit
Then why ask is what we pay if you’ll just charge what you want?
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
I cant get curious to see what others are paying?
thortgot@reddit
Frankly any company not wiping their own data before providing it to a destruction company is incompetent.
Cyber_Faustao@reddit
Kinda sad so much working hardware is destroyed. Using encryption layers such as Bitlocker/LUKS2 are enough to protect data if paired with a good password policy. A drive secure erase/sanitize should remove all further metadata on the drive.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
You'd be so surprised what clients ask us to destroy. One client wanted the RAM and SSDs destroyed and all the phone motherboards shredded down to 2mm.
Perfect-Concern-9762@reddit
They pay us, and they keep the hardware. They just provide certificates.
Trust_8067@reddit
That doesn't sound legit. A certificate of destruction should mean the disk is completely unusable.
hops_on_hops@reddit
Not true. Certificate of DATA destruction is required. Not physical device destruction.
Source: cjis certification.
Trust_8067@reddit
That's not a standard outside of handling FBI information.
I also never said it needed to be physically destroyed, I said it had to be unusable. Physical destruction is one way, degaussing is another. Simple DOD wipes aren't always acceptable.
Jezbod@reddit
Same here, I'm in the UK and they send out their purchase price list every few months.
Company is the Stone Group, which supply corporate and retail, and as far as I can remember, no domestic sales.
In the past, they did offer laptops back to staff "at cost", covering a wipe, rebuild and Windows licence.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Interesting, are they certified to any industry standard? R2v3 or e-stewards.
Perfect-Concern-9762@reddit
Yes
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
That's a good deal. It seems they're offering software based erasure for free because there is reuse potential in the material.
Maeldruin_@reddit
We do it ourselves. We use a big punch and make sure we hit the ram chips on SSDs and make sure the platters in hard drives shatter. One of our clients does it themselves, and they use a laser cutter to destroy them.
We've had a few clients that needed CoDs, but we usually refer them to a local vendor that does it. No idea what they charge.
Trust_8067@reddit
If we don't need a certificate of destruction, we just nuke them ourselves.
TinderSubThrowAway@reddit
Pay nothing.
Throw it in the pressbrake, then into the scrap recycle bin and they pay us for it with the rest of the scrap we give them.
SeriekDarathus@reddit
We charge employees $20 per drive. They get an 8-lbs sledge, safety gear, and a safe room to get all of their frustration out.
britannicker@reddit
As funny as it is, I think company's pay for the certification, so they can prove compliance in the event of an audit, and not the shredding (or whatever method you use).
I think many comments are missing this; Most think the drives can be re-used somewhere, and that's a good thing but those are not your customers.
For anyone else, some drives cannot ever be seen, remounted, re-used because of security, data, customer history, secrecy, etc. etc.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Bingo. People here act like it’s a crime to charge for ewaste. Certified destruction is all about risk mitigation and compliance. It’s not cheap to get the certs either nor is it easy. And I can say that no Fortune 500 will even talk to you without a cert. that gets your foot in the door
UninvestedCuriosity@reddit
I'm not sure what they paid for the drill press in the basement 40 years ago.
BlockBannington@reddit
Belgium: we don't pay, they pay us actually. What the fuck is this 'pay for waste removal'?
AggravatingAmount438@reddit
"It's not worthwhile to do for free" says the one person charging in a sea of companies doing it for free.
If every company is able to do it for free and you're not, then you're showing that you're missing an important detail that these other companies have already figured out. You also seem convinced that the reason is they're not certified, even though multiple people have proven they are so.
This was a learning opportunity for you, but instead you're refusing to learn.
CeC-P@reddit
I've pushed to do it ourselves everywhere I've worked. At most medical places, that's the policy. But the lifetime corpo suit IT people don't have any idea how computers work so they just make it someone else's problem. Us former IT repair shop workers know SSDs can't be erased normally and you need to do it 1 of 4 ways but it's so insanely fast, paying someone else to do it is idiotic.
Foreign_Impress6535@reddit
Pay? I GET PAID! In MAGNETS.
The platters get shredded on site.
CombatMedic77@reddit
I think the drill was like... 100 bucks?
moondog190@reddit
I do everything internal. Wipe the drives using shredOS using the DOD wipe. For HDDs they get put on our Bridgeport CNC machine and put a lot of 1/4” holes through the platters. For SSDs we take a punch tool and hit every nand chip and they tend to just explode into a million pieces lol. From there they end up in the scrap pile.
In years past I use to run a neodymium magnet over everything after they got wiped and before we physically destroyed them but I think it was just an unneeded step as we don’t have anything that sensitive being stored locally on the machines.
majin_weegee@reddit
My company pays around 15K€ per destruction event. Happens every 2 months or so. I love this post haha. The big guys love to throw money out the window.
R0B0t1C_Cucumber@reddit
People pay ? They pay us per lb, provide a certificate of destruction for the data.
ITSec8675309@reddit
We bought a degausser
snookpig77@reddit
My issue is for compliance I need to witness the destruction of the hard drive media. I don’t have a choice but to pay for onsite shredding.
Carl
countsachot@reddit
Nothing, but I do give them some extra old ram and procs sometimes if they need to meet quota.
Outrageous_Plant_526@reddit
I don't know how much our equipment cost but I work for a US DoD organization and we do all the hard drive destructions for our entire military installation. We have a deqausser for traditional hard drives that we use and then bend the drives and a shredder that turns SSD and NVMe drives into dust. The volume of drives we do annually is absurd though.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Smart. We have a similar set up. I talked to a DoD organization and they said they do it in house as well, because a previous recycler’s employee stole devices and there was an arrest etc made over it.
Do you happen to know what they do with the residual ewaste from the broken drives and the SSD dust. It’s actually worth a good amount in scrap price.
Outrageous_Plant_526@reddit
I wish I knew. Our installation has a big recycle program but it doesn't cover everything. Your question now makes me wonder what they do with all of it. I know I can go to our logistics area and they have a heavy duty cardboard box that sits on a pallet and is about 5 feet by 5 feet by maybe 4 feet in size and we have had that thing full multiple times.
kevvie13@reddit
Free for me in singapore. They take the pc, out the hdd for serial numbers and shred it. With cert.
BWMerlin@reddit
I get paid by the eWaste company and they throw in data destruction and provide certificates as part of the deal.
They even come on site to collect and package everything up for me.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
how old are the devices you guys are typically scrapping? im assuming they still have a decent usable lifespan if that's the case. I set my cutline at 3 years old or newer for now.
xSecondSalt@reddit
6-15 years here. They drive a great distance even with fuel what it is and then give us money. You’re in a tough gig.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Yeah I’m going to stick to the Fortune 500s lol
xSecondSalt@reddit
You gotta do you OP.
I would not be here if it didn’t align with my goals.
I’ll retire at 60, and I’ve been able to come home on lunch and eat with my family every day. The boomers said it couldn’t be done, I said hold my beer.
There’s many paths to a happy life.
Work is just one piece.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the advice. Exactly there’s many avenues
xSecondSalt@reddit
Wishing you nothing but it the best, genuinely. Have fun with the cutting edge. There’s so much in FAANG land that can be truly enjoyable.
Small pond, small fish. Only so much challenge.
BWMerlin@reddit
Nothing newer than three years. Some stuff is ancient and still get a couple of dollars or it is taken away free of charge as part of the deal.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Thanks for sharing the data point. I appreciate it.
RevolutionaryWorry87@reddit
This.
Recent_Perspective53@reddit
Local place puts them through sheers at $9 a drive. I bring the drives to them. Another company I've used came to me, put them through their shredder at $5 a drive. Both gave certificates of destruction.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
That’s really fair
amang_admin@reddit
Pay? Are you serious?
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
No business works for free
amang_admin@reddit
You're the only one paying. Look at the other comments.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
You should work for free too 👍
Perfect-Concern-9762@reddit
You recoup the cost from resale if used items, or the rare metals in the components.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Depends on the age. 7 year old laptops aren’t worth it
Perfect-Concern-9762@reddit
You take the 7 year old laptops with the 3 year servers and 3year old desktops and the 2 year old phones.. you take what the customer gives you and make it work.
Some devices we get a credit, some devices we get nothing, but at the end of the day it’s all securely wiped and disposed of and cost us nothing.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Yeah of course. It's a service based industry so every job is different. From this thread I gathered that my model is working fine for standardized pricing and offering credits based on an expanded cutline to offset destruction costs work.
But if a client for example asks me to destroy 100 hard drives with serialized reporting on 7 year old PCs, there's definitely a charge for that.
Perfect-Concern-9762@reddit
Like any business you need to find your balance between demand and price.
If you swamped you can up your price, and be picky with customers. Of your struggling to get devices in the door, you might need to work on either improving service or lowering cost.
Wish you all the best and success in your business, it’s a competitive market out there.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Exactly, I appreciate your insight too btw. It's definitely competitive but a really fun industry too. I love it.
amang_admin@reddit
This. Now you know, OP.
amang_admin@reddit
You are a noob? Have you read the other comments already?
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Not really. It’s not like business is slow
amang_admin@reddit
See the other comments for the nth time.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
You mean the ones saying some are free and some sectors charge?
CobaltFrame@reddit
Zero. Free collection and free drive destruction with certs. UK based.
baslighting@reddit
Hey, can you DM me with the name of the comp you use? We are looking for a new company to help us with this!
TheyAreWatchin@reddit
We use wetradetech.
They drop off a cage when requested and then pick it up for free.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Question for you - are you mandating that they physically destroy your IT assets or are they deciding whether to wipe vs destroy? Also, for the drive certs - are they serialized with each drives serial # or is it just a general "certificate of data destruction." I took a look and the good thing is they are certified to ISO 27001. They aren't certified to any recycling industry standard, however. Here in the US, there's some emphasis on R2v3 due to illegal e-waste exports to Malaysia, Hong Kong etc so R2v3 provides some level of "due diligence" for corps
disposeable1200@reddit
Lookup ADISA
That's what any decent UK or EU supplier is using
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
ADISA is a great standard from a data security perspective. It doesn’t validate a recyclers environmental methods, exports, etc however.
bukkithedd@reddit
Pay for hard-drive destruction?
Zero, other than expenditure of sweat and rage.
It's me, my imagination, penchant for violent destruction of things, old harddrives and various tools. 8kg sledgehammer, 100-ton hydraulic press, plasmacutting-table that regularly handles sheetmetal up to 30cm thick plates etc.
I usually set aside a day during the quiet periods every summer for some ultracreative destruction-sessions. Good luck getting anything out of a disk that's been through first getting flattened into less than a 3rd of its original shape and then cut into thin(ish) strips with a plasmacutter.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
It's not data destruction that's the difficult part. It's the liability and reporting which is time consuming. If an organization has a data breach, you have to ensure the risk doesn't get blamed on you as the ITAD vendor so it means keeping detailed records, photographs, etc.
bukkithedd@reddit
Yeah, reporting is a bitch, pure and simple. I luckily don't work in that type of environment anymore, so I can just be violent as hell :D
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
lol I have fun with it too 🤣. Breaks my heart when clients ask us to shred newer NVMEs with the price these days 😭
bukkithedd@reddit
Yep, that one sucks HARD.
I know that more than one NVME has found its way into my home-rig after I've slaughtered the PC it came out of. Have a stack of 256 and 512's flopping about, which has saved us from spending a lot of dosh on things we don't need to.
Level_Shake1487@reddit
just pick a framework and iterate, overthinking it is the real trap.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Yup exactly. Ive been tweaking it and trying. My pricing model, despite what people in this thread say - works fine for most clients that are decently sized (100+ employees).
For the smaller business ones I think they just don't budget for certified ITAD and that's ok, it's probably not a market segment worth going after right now.
siedenburg2@reddit
We pay about 1000€ flat for a container of normal hdds that can fit about 150-200hdds, ssds/nvmes are cheaper.
Had to pay for it because of medical data etc and with audits the auditor even visits the company to see every step.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
That's really fair. It seems you're getting a bulk discount.
jdiscount@reddit
This is going to vary widely, you'll need to contact local companies to get quotes.
Don't work in IT directly anymore but years back when I worked at a VFX company where we had 10's of thousands of disks and regular failures, the cost of destroying disks was whatever the cost of a Milwaukee/DeWalt/Makita impact driver was.
Our guys would just drill the platters, and then take the destroyed drives to the nearest landfill that also accepted ewaste.
So the cost was almost zero.
Enferrari@reddit (OP)
Thanks for your feedback. Yup if a client brings the destroyed drives and does a drop-off that's free of course, since there's precious metals in the hard drives.
melophat@reddit
I think the torx screwdriver set and hammer cost me about 18 bucks at harbor freight..
HorseShedShingle@reddit
I’ve taken them to the shooting range for some plinking practice. Costs about $20 in ammo.
melophat@reddit
This.
Ziegelphilie@reddit
Zero. I wipe my drives with Killdisk (with certificate) and then it goes on the big "we'll get to it" stack in the corner of the serverroom/storage closet