When you have unused, idle old IBM hard drive lying around, a viable option to maximize the value of the drive is to sell it for extra cash.
If the old IBM hard drive is still in a relatively good condition and not too old with a decent resale value, and yet you don’t want to reutilize it for one reason or another, then it’s better to sell it rather than physically destroying/recycling an old IBM hard drive.
While there’s always the concern of data security when selling old IBM hard drives, it’s possible to securely delete residual data from the old IBM hard drive and ensure the data cannot be recovered by anyone with our data destruction solution.

The main concern of many people when selling their old IBM hard drives is whether the data stored within the sold IBM hard drive can be accessed by the buyer (or other parties after the IBM hard drive was sold). This has caused many people to feel reluctant in selling their used IBM hard drives.
While it’s true that it’s possible for people with adequate know-how (including hackers and cybercriminals) to recover residual data already erased from the old IBM hard drive, there are methods and tools you can use to securely eradicate the data stored within the old IBM hard drive and prevent recovery of residual data.
A viable option to ensure the security of your data (which may be legally required by local legislation) and your privacy is to sell your used IBM hard drives to credible IT asset disposition services like Big Data Supply Inc. that will handle all the needs of securely eradicating the data stored within the old IBM hard drive. Big Data Supply Inc. will also provide a certificate of data destruction for each old IBM hard drive you sell to us, a formal audit document that can help ensure your organization’s compliance with relevant data security and risk management regulations.

How much is your old IBM hard drive worth? The answer would vary depending on various different factors including but not limited to:
Condition: whether there’s any defect (functional or cosmetics), how old the IBM hard drive is, whether it has since been replaced with a faster/better model
Storage size: IBM hard drive sizes can vary from as small as below 100 GB to more than 16 TB
Type: traditional HDD (with motorized disk) or SSD (Solid State Drive)
Model: check the manufacturer’s part number
RPM: (for standard HDD), 5400, 7200, 10k, 15k
Transfer rate speed: 190 MB/S
Physical size: 2.5” or 3.5”

There are basically three main options you can do with your old IBM hard drive, depending on the IBM hard drive’s reusability and resale value:

Reutilize
If the old IBM hard drive is still working well, then it’s a viable option to reutilize these old IBM hard drives, for example by using the old IBM hard drive in another device, or by converting it into an external drive.
Before you can reutilize an old IBM hard drive, you have to first determine whether the old IBM hard drive is in a good condition. As a general rule of thumb, the drive should not be older than five years and you should also check the drive’s health to ensure it’s still in a good state.

Sell
If the old IBM hard drive is still relatively new and is still in a good condition, it might have a relatively high resale value, so selling the old IBM hard drive for extra cash can be an ideal option.
The main concern when choosing to sell your used IBM hard drives for extra cash is secure data eradication, but partnering with reliable ITAD vendors like Big Data Supply Inc. can ensure secure data erasure in compliance with ISO standards.

Disposal
If the old IBM hard drive is both unusable and with a low resale value, then the only viable and secure option is to dispose of or recycle the old IBM hard drive. Physical destruction will 100% ensure that the data on your old IBM hard drive won’t be recovered by others.
A common way to “destroy” your old IBM hard drives is by shredding the old IBM hard drive or running the drive through a degausser.

The answer would depend on many different factors from the type/model of the old IBM hard drive and others. However, basically you’ll need to securely wipe the data stored within the drive and make sure the data is unrecoverable. Physical destruction is the safest bet, and you could try many ways to destroy your old IBM hard drive before selling it: degaussing/magnets, running over it with your vehicle, etc.

However, you’ll also need to be able to verify whether the data is indeed unrecoverable, and this is why it’s best to recycle or sell your old IBM hard drive to a certified recycler like Big Data Supply Inc. unless you have state-of-the-art equipment to securely wipe the IBM hard drive and verify that the data is unrecoverable.