Sell Your Used External Hard Drive — 0% Fees

A used external hard drive typically sells for £15 to £60, and on WishThrift it costs you nothing to list — no fee, no commission, so you keep the whole amount you agree. With any storage device the first job is not photography, it is making sure your data is genuinely gone — a quick format is not enough.

The short version

Typical range: £15 – £60 — see the full external hard drive value guide
What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
Category: Electronics

Before you photograph it

Ten minutes here is worth more than anything else you will do. Buyers are deciding between your listing and someone else’s, and preparation is what visibly separates the two.

Securely erase the drive rather than quick formatting it, since a quick format leaves the data recoverable.
Check the drive’s health with a SMART reporting tool and note the power-on hours and any reallocated sectors.
Test the cable and confirm the interface and whether it needs external power.

The photographs that sell an external hard drive

Four photographs do almost all the work. Shoot in daylight, near a window, with the item against something plain — and do not use the flash, which flattens texture and hides exactly what buyers are trying to see.

The drive whole, with its cable
A health-check screen showing SMART status and hours
The label with capacity, model and interface
The connector and power supply, plus any dent or scuff

Photograph the flaws too. It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover. Buyers who can see the damage stop imagining something worse.

Writing the title and description

Capacity, interface and type: “Seagate 2TB External Hard Drive, USB 3.0, Portable”. Capacity is the search. Say whether it is a portable bus-powered drive or a desktop unit needing mains power, since that changes its use entirely.

Then state these in the description, because a buyer who has to ask is a buyer who might not bother:

Capacity and interface
Whether it is bus powered or needs a mains adapter
SMART health status and power-on hours
That it has been securely erased, and what cables are included

What buyers will actually ask

You will receive the same three messages about an external hard drive. Answering them in the listing itself removes the back-and-forth, and answering them well when they do arrive is what turns an enquiry into a sale.

“Have you wiped it properly?”

Say that you securely erased rather than quick formatted it. Recoverable personal data on a sold drive is a real problem for you, not just for the buyer.

“What is the drive health like?”

Run a SMART check and quote the hours and any reallocated sectors. Buyers of used storage always ask and the honest figure builds trust.

“Does it need a power supply?”

Say which, and include it. A desktop drive without its specific adapter is unusable.

Pricing it so it actually sells

Start from the honest condition grade rather than the price you hope for. WishThrift listings use five grades — New with Tags, Like New, Good, Fair and For Parts — and what each grade means is worth reading before you choose, because grading up is the most expensive mistake sellers make. It does not raise the price; it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else.

The external hard drive value guide prices all five grades for this item. Pick your grade, take the figure, and if you sit between two grades price toward the lower one. Items priced honestly sell faster than items priced hopefully, and on a free platform there is no fee eating the difference anyway.

What you keep, compared

On a £37 sale — roughly the middle of the range for an external hard drive — here is what the commission-charging platforms would take, and what you would keep on each:

Where you sell it	Fee	You keep
WishThrift	£0	£37
Poshmark	−£7	£30
eBay	−£5	£32
Mercari	−£4	£33
Etsy	−£2	£35

Seller-side rates verified 26 Jul 2026 — Poshmark: 20% commission on sales of $15 and above; eBay: 13.6% final value fee, plus a per-order fee; Mercari: flat 10% selling fee; Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee and payment processing. Percentages are applied to the sterling figure above; the fixed per-order and processing charges those platforms add are quoted in their own currency and are not included here, so the real deductions are slightly larger. Full breakdown: marketplace selling fees compared.

Timing and getting it to the buyer

Steady year round with a lift in January. Larger capacities and USB-C drives sell fastest; small old drives are worth very little.

Light and easy to post, but pack well — mechanical drives are shock sensitive and a knock in transit can kill one that was working when it left.

WishThrift does not process payments or arrange delivery — you and the buyer agree both directly — so confirm payment has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.

Ready to list it? It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission when it sells — create a free account or see how selling works.

Frequently asked questions

How do I wipe a hard drive before selling?

Use a secure erase or full overwrite rather than a quick format, which only removes the file index and leaves the data recoverable with free tools. Say in your listing that you did a full erase.

What is a used external hard drive worth?

Typically £15 to £60 depending on capacity and interface. See the external hard drive value guide.

Should I include the drive health report?

Yes. A screenshot of the SMART status and power-on hours is the single most reassuring thing you can put in a used storage listing, and almost nobody does it.