For machines find the local recyclers and become friendly with them. Learn the scrap rates and give them 50% more and you can pretty much have anything there. My collection has grown quite a bit over the last year by going to the recycler, and they let me look around without escort.
I am in Youngstown, OH. Larger cities should have larger recycling centers.

You need to check the thrifts and recyclers weekly, most of the time you find little or nothing others you get floods of good stuff.

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I have a good arrangement with the local recycler... for beige stuff: $5 for pizza box Macs/small monitors, $10 for larger Macs/monitors, and he will make sure that I get at least one hard drive for each Mac. I'll check all the Macs and then he'll go in the back and grab a bunch of SCSI hard drives.

Houston has free electronics recycling and I get my stuff from the recycler that the city sells to. If your city doesn't have free electronics recycling then more stuff tends to show up in the thrift stores.