Would you buy a used dishrag from this meathead?

[Tea]

Take a look at this Ebay item: http://cgi.ebay.ch/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=87050&item=5201672915

This moron is trying to catch a buyer for a worthless 2.5GB hard drive. Let's examine the vendor's credentials and work out if the guy is honest and/or knows anything at all about his products, shall we?

* First, he is using a stolen image.
* Second, he is trying to steal the bandwidth as well.
* Third, he is apparently so stupid that he doesn't realise the stolen image doesn't show up on-screen at all.
* Fourth he has illustrated his advert for a Quantum Fireball with a picture of a Samsung drive!

* Well maybe he couldn't find a picture of a Quantum drive? (Nope: plenty of Quantum pictures on the same website he stole the Samsung picture from.)
* OK, so maybe it's hard to tell the drives apart; maybe the picture looks a little like a Quantum drive and he just made a mistake? (Well, seeing as the picture doesn't say "Quantum" anywhere and the drive has got "Samsung" written on it in big black and white letters .... well, I think it's time to present this turkey with my #2 moron of the month award.)

(Number 2 moron award? Why not the number 1 moron award?)

Because I'm saving the #1 moron of the month award for the fool who buys his worthless pile of old junk.

 

[Buck]

Gotta love this description: Völlig intakt und läuft noch wie ein Glöckchen also schnell zugreifen - Excellent condition, fast access time and operates with the precision of a clock. If my hard drive ever operated with the precision of a clock, my data would be lost.

 

[Tannin]

Ahh, thankyou Buck. Not being able to speak the language, I was denied that little gem.

 

[jtr1962]

Tea,

Ebay is famous for selling old hard drives at ludicrous prices. Dig around a little more and you'll probably find 10 or 20 GB drives with closing bids for not much less than a brand new 80 GB drive goes for. Seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if this drive fetches $10 US or more. I could probably get $20 for the 8.4GB drive in my old 386 if I auctioned it. It certainly works well enough, and has not much over a year of use. Now I can sometimes see the need for a drive like this if you maybe found a box on the street, and are getting it in good enough working order so maybe someone can use it as a very basic computer. However, I can't see paying more than a few dollars shipped for such a drive, if at all. I've seen drives this size left in computers thrown by the curb. In fact, if I felt like dumpster diving in the richer sections of Manhattan I wouldn't be surprised if I could find something with better specs than the machine I'm using, and with a working 30 or 40 GB drive in it to boot.

I blame the morons who bid drives like this to ridiculous levels. I can't blame the seller for trying to capitalize on a worthless piece of junk.

 

[Tannin]

I know what you mean, JTR. (Excuse me butting in here, Tea has gone to bed.) I sell small, old hard drives for vastly more than they are worth. It doesn't make any rational sense, it's just supply and demand.

New stuff you price with one eye on your costs and the other eye on the going market rate.

Second-hand stuff you price on supply and demand. If you have 17 of Product X and no buyers in sight, then your price is too high, put it down a bit. If you never have any stock of Product X and a waiting list in case another one comes in, then your price is too low, put it up a bit. If you have one or two in stock and they turn over regularly, you have found the market price.

The going market price for second-hand hard drives in the "recent models" category (let's say from 15GB up to about 60GB at the moment) is always very high. People ask for, e.g., a 40GB drive. I offer them one for the market price (that's about AU$80 at present), and then tell them that for about $20 more they can have a brand new drive, with three year factory warranty, higher speed, and double the capacity. Two out of three see the sense in that and take the new drive. The third one buys the 40GB unit. I have no idea why, they just do.

Right now we have (from memory) 1 x 40GB, 1 x 20, and 1 x 10GB in stock (plus about a dozen each of 80GB and 120GB new drives, and four or five 200GB). That's fairly typical. Sometimes we don't have any second-hand drives at all. People keep buying them, no matter how clearly I explain how much better value the new drives are.

But once you drop below the saleable size range — below about a 6GB size at present — you usually have dozens lying around. 2GB and 4GB drives are worth practically nothing.

It must be a strange, strange world out there on Ebay.

 

[Fushigi]

Actually, there is a market for old & small hard drives. It's the same market that might still be running 386ish class CPUs. Manufacturing control systems. The equipment is often around for 15+ years and parts availability can be a serious issue for the PC side. The PCBs/controllers may still be ISA with no PCI (or USB...) replacements. Thus, you can't just swap in a new PC and run with it.

BTW, if they're trying to steal your HD image, let them. But replace the HD image with one of plain text saying "This ebay seller is using an unauthorized image. Please do not buy from this seller." or somesuch.

 

[Buck]

2GB and 4GB drives are worth practically nothing.

They make for nice swap file drives.

 

[Buck]

:rofl:

I didn't even notice where he was trying to link that picture from!

You don't have permission to access www.redhill.net.au/jpg/d-sv0322.jpgon this server.

 

[Mercutio]

I have a student who repairs electronic novelty devices - jukeboxes, arcade games, slot machines - for a living. Apparently a certain class of these machines run DOS. Old DOS. Like DOS 3, or something.
At any rate, he stops by my office and pays me $5 - $10 apiece for as many working drives as I can find that are functional and in the range of 200 - 540MB. I almost alway find six or seven more drives like that over the space of a month. Apparently, he re-sells them to other people who work on the same machines he does for $20 apiece.

 

[Bozo]

At work we have numerous machine controls that use proprietary electronics, but off the shelf hard drives ( VME controllers.) Trying to install anything except what they came with is an exercise in futility. Right now we are paying ~$350 for a 300Meg SCSI drive that has been reconditioned. Changing the controller to use something newer would be a massive and expensive project.

Bozo