What is an Old Mainframe Hard Drive Worth?

[Recyclersteve]

I have an old collectible I’d like to consider selling.

It is an old hard drive from a Sperry (Unisys) mainframe computer. For those who don’t know about mainframes, they were often 20-35 feet long or so. They often cost around $2-3 million each, which was a LOT of money in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Users of mainframes were often banks and governmental agencies such as NASA.

I happen to have an old hard drive from one of them. It was defective and wouldn’t work anymore, but, instead of throwing it into a dumpster, I decided to save it. The mainframes often had -
about 8-10 hard drives in them. Get this- EACH ONE weighed about 30-35#, was about 18”W x 8”H x 30”D (rough dimensions from memory). Each had a capacity of 125MB (which is NOTHING today) and cost a WHOPPING $125,000. Each hard drive cost more than a typical house at the time! The hard drives alone could make up more than $1 million of the cost of a mainframe!

I figure something like this would have good value to a collector or a museum. I will be struggling to pay expenses for another roughly 3 years until I take Social Security, so I can use some cash. Anyone have an idea where I could sell it and what would be a fair price? If someone wants to send me a private message with an offer (or have me text them photos), please feel free to reach out.

P.S. i just checked eBay and didn’t see a single unit for sale like mine!

P.P.S. I won’t even think about parting with this keepsake for less than $1,000, so don’t think about offering a few hundred bucks.

[TXSTARFIRE]

Who was the drive made by, Sperry or someone else? I would like to see pictures if you could post some.

[68Camaro]

There are a couple computer museums around the country, I would try those. My recollection is that most of them don't buy much equipment, especially items that don't work, but they might make exceptions for specific things they are missing. I believe IBM has a museum, and the old DEC (ultimately bought by HP) used to have a museum. I don't remember which company bought the remnants of Sperry but I would start with their corporate successors of their computing business.

[NiBullionCu]

Burroughs did a hostile takeover of Sperry in 1986 and the resulting merger bcame Unisys.

[Dr. Cadmium]

PM sent!

[Tourney64]

Would think that the magnets and copper in the drive would have value.

[Recyclersteve]

Gonna add some more info, since I’ve had a couple quick inquiries.

Fujitsu brand- was installed in a Sperry (Unisys) mainframe
Model M2322K
Part no. B393B-4745-B002A
Serial number: 104291 (date: 1989-3) (March, ‘89?)
Approx. dimensions: 18”D x 10-1/2”W x 6”H
Weight: 32.1#

I would think that some scrappers who know what they’re doing could extract both gold and silver (and possibly other PM’s).

Once again, this drive is definitely defective. Don’t expect it to work.

If you send me a private message with a cell phone number, I can text 8 photos to you.

[JerrySpringer]

May be of no use, but reddit has a vintage computing sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/

May sketch out some information about hard drives of that era.

[Recyclersteve]

Thx Jerry for the link. Looked for a while, but didn’t see anything nearly like what I have. Oh well…

[Dr. Cadmium]

I already told Recyclersteve but I own an e-scrap business and I asked the private collectors I've sold vintage items to in the past and they are not interested in this drive. It's too old to be a useful part to anyone and too new to be a museum piece!

Would think that the magnets and copper in the drive would have value.

You're actually not that far off. The magnets may be the most valuable scrap item in this unit, as I believe there was a short period of time in the late 80s - early 90s when the drives contained cobalt magnets instead of the neodynmium alloys used from the mid 1990s through the 2000s. Note I've only come across this tidbit a few times and I have not confirmed it. I don't break drives down in my business and instead buy them intact for $0.60/lb.

The PCB board on it is worth $6-$8 per pound as scrap and the body is cast aluminum, $0.30/lb-$0.50/lb at most yards.