You may be wondering, why would someone actually buy your drive on eBay?

Indeed, why would someone pay for your old but working drive the same price for which you can buy a brand new current generation drive in the store. Who are these people? What is the one thing that annoys me to no end and that actually lowers the value of your hard drive and triggers all sorts of questions to seller.

I am your ideal customer

I buy hard drives on eBay every day. I buy them in various sizes and at various prices. I always click the Buy it now button and pay on the spot, specifying overnight shipping. Not only do I want it at the price you set, but I also need it yesterday or sooner. If you are local within the nearest 100 miles, chances are I'll ask for a local pickup option. It really is that urgent. I actually caught a flight once to pickup a drive. I am not alone.

Refurbished vs. Used

Unless you are actually selling a factory refurbished hard drive with a new part number that identifies it as refurbished, please list the drive as used.

A factory-refurbished drive is completely useless to me unless I happen to be working on a factory-refurbished drive. I won't go into details as to why that is the case, but let's just say it's not compatible. Are you starting to see where this discussion is headed?

That's right! In most industries, you will typically get a higher sales price for a refurbished product. In the case of hard drives, if you mark it "refurbished" incorrectly, I will probably skip your listing. Simply formatting the drive, even "erasing" bad sectors with special utilities does not make it a refurbished drive.

In summary, if you want me to buy your drive and not bug you with lots of questions, please mark the drive as used. If you mark it as refurbished, you are misrepresenting the item.

How to keep your identity safe while selling the hard drive

When I am shopping for your hard drive, I couldn't care less what's on it. Chances are, that beyond its initial test, I will never spin it up again. However, I recommend that you run DBAN on it. eBay won't let me specify non-eBay URLs, so just run a Google search for it.

DBAN will ensure that I can't recover your data. Just make sure to not make the mistake of running it on the wrong drive! There are unscrupulous eBay users who will buy your drive in hopes of obtaining copies of your personal information.

Given how easy it is for me to perform data recovery, this is a legitimate threat. If I have physical access to your hard disk, your passwords no longer matter.

What's more interesting is how do you sell your drive to someone like me.

I am someone who requires extremely specific hard drives. You see, I am in the data recovery business. When your hard drive dies, and before it goes to heaven, it usually winds up in my lab.

At that point I need parts. If you think of a hard drive as a car, think of a classic car for which parts are no longer made and that are not directly available from the manufacturer.

My clients pay me for speed. The faster I can get the data back, the happier they are.

Back to buying parts. I need a hard drive that is literally a twin of the one that's sitting in my lab.

Here is what I want to know:

Let's use a DiamondMax 21 that's on my desk right now as an example. This is a brand new drive but same concepts apply.

Model name: DiamondMax 21
Model number: STM3320620AS
Full part number: 9DP14G-326
Firmware: 3.AAE
Date code: 08175
Site code: WU
Capacity: 320GB
Type: SATA
Serial number: 5QF6HAA9

Flip the drive

Galaxy 2D
3158 2
Q2161
100428684

And lastly look at the bottom of the green circuit board

100436204 B 38167W1A

Basically, write down everything that is on that drive. That is what will help you sell it much faster. I am usually searching by model number, firmware, and then datecode and sitecode.

Firmware codes (also known as Microcode, MLC etc) are also extremely important to us.

Picture

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so you may think. I want to see a clear picture of the actual unit I am buying. I prefer that the text on it be readable. Even better when you include a nice clear picture of the bottom of the drive.

However! The eBay search engine does not see the text on the picture. If you just put up the picture and do not write down in your ad what's in that picture, I'll never even see your ad even if your price is lower. That means that unless I need to start doing really in-depth research your drive will never be sold.

If you include all the information, but your picture is unclear, I really don't care. Others might. :)

Buy it now or Auction

If the listing format is auction without a BIN option, I will not buy your drive regardless of the price. I don't have time to wait. Set a fair price for Buy it now and it will disappear very quickly if it matches my shopping list. Do include overnight shipping as one of the default available options. I don't have time to wait until you create new invoice with new overnight options. ExpressMail is OK, but FedEx, UPS, or DHL are fine as well.

Oh, and do me a favor, don't require signature on delivery. It's optional, but I hate missing delivery trucks. These are cheap items.

Please pack the drive like it's a very fragile item, which it is.

External hard drives

If you are selling an external drive, you'd have better luck to sell its actual hard disk inside. Some of them are a major pain to open, however. After all, why do you want to sell the enclosure anyway? Sell me the 160GB drive that's inside and buy yourself a nice 500GB drive.

Tip: the easiest enclosures to open are those made by Acomdata. I love them. I have a large stack of them in my lab as it was cheaper to buy an external disk than a comparable internal unit.

Tell me everything you possibly can about that external drive. I may be able to figure what's inside. Run manufacturer's utilities on it to at least find out the model number and the serial number.

In summary

I will buy your drive if it matches my shopping list. It's a bit like a lottery for you, but there are lots of others like me. Think about it, who else would want to buy a 20GB drive in the age of 1000GB units? If you have older drives laying around your house, put them up on eBay anyway. You may be surprised what we might be willing to pay for some of them.

What's a sensible price? That's up to you to decide. I will run a search. I will likely identify a few candidates. I'll buy a couple of drives that best match my requirements and are lowest priced. If you include all the information I need, I will probably find your listing faster than I would a lower priced drive.

Hopefully, after you read this, you will make my job easier and enjoy more sales.