HSM Classic 125.2, 28-30 Sheet, Strip-Cut, 20-Gallon Capacity Shredder

As happened to others, my first one arrived broken, having been dropped apparently in transit, but Amazon is the best, always, and it was replaced within a few days, and the second one arrived in perfect condition.For our needs, we have a lot of confidential yearly shredding, and service costs keep rising, to where the cost, per box, is just ridiculously high for a task we can do ourselves. At under $400, just doing this year's shredding has already made this pay for itself, versus hiring someone to bring a mobile truck or even taking our stuff to a shredding service. So, this is by far the cheaper option and gets the job done.The strips produced are somewhat large and this is not a cross-cut style machine, but it serves the need for rendering confidential documents destroyed, although, if someone was really needing extreme document destruction, you might want a different model that either makes thinner strips or actually does cross cut.True to the advertising, it can and does run nonstop, so this is terrific for us, because we can just keep feeding it until we're done. Plus, it handles staples and paperclips, of course, so that speeds up the process. It will also handle CD's, but we don't have that need.Feeding could be a bit smoother maybe, only because the safety flap on top is a bit in the way sometimes, so, as pointed out by others, you do have to pay attention to lining up the batch of papers being fed into it (to some degree, at least) but you can get into a rhythm and a flow, to where it is a pretty smooth process for bulk shredding.The bag fills up pretty quick, and we switched to kitchen garbage bags, since it only came with a few bags, and we didn't feel like buying more of the HSM bags. Any appropriately sized bag works the same and the kitchen bags have the ties on them, which is better than the bags that came with the shredder, that don't have any type of built in closure for sealing up the bag, when full.It is remarkably quiet, far quieter than our other, smaller shredders, and I am very impressed with how it performs, just churning away without a skip or hesitation. We also bought the oil, and some lubricant sheets, so we will be sure to keep it maintained.For our needs, this was a massively affordable alternative to using a document shredding service and, yes, it takes time to do it as opposed to just dropping our stuff off somewhere, or having a truck show up to do it, but given the rising costs of shredding services available, it just seemed a waste of good money to pay so much, for something we can handle, with the right machine to do it -- and this is certainly that machine!For the price, this really can't be beat, for what it can accomplish, and we are very pleased with this purchase.Would definitely buy again, this definitely does exactly what it says, and it's a well deserved five star product.Thanks for reading -- hope this has helped!

This shredder works very well when it is new, but if by chance you put in too many sheets one time there's a good chance it will basically pull itself apart. The mechanism, straining to get the paper through, somehow pulls the bolts out of the flimsy particle board from which its case is constructed. These threads are now stripped, and it will never stay together after that.

I'm writing this review having only had the shredder for a week, however I've gone through 9 bags in that time. This shredder is simply amazing, I've had it jam only because I wanted to see how far I could push it : ) Even still it was super easy to unjam using that reverse button. It is extremely quiet and becomes more silent the more paper you feed it. You are able to put in about 30-40 sheets at a time and the holding bin is huge so you don't have to empty it very often. However twice you will have to push the shredded pieces down to reset the sensor.My only 2 issues with the shredder is that the piece that holds the bag is rather cheap, it is just a wire and you can't stand it up so changing the bag is a bit annoying. And if you are a company that has sensitive material this may not be the shredder for you. the pieces are a little large and if someone did want to piece them together it probably wouldn't be so hard. However our company doesn't fall in that category so I'm very pleased!

Great machine and holds a lot of paper. Downfall is the safety guard on top, its nearly impossible to get paper in the first time and we are spending more time lining the paper just just right to get it to work. Very annoying.

Not a good shredder at all only had it a month was working fine, bought it for an office that constantly uses the shredder and now having a lot of issues with it. its already jammed and not working. i cant even contact anyone about it and it doesn't let me replace it.

The shredder did not come with the special cutting block oil 1.7 oz that was listed in the contents by the manual.I just wanted to ask for that. But I'd have to return the whole thing which is silly.

Only thing that could make this better is cross cut but for someone who wants to shred less often and in bigger batches like me this is perfect just keeps on shredding

Compared to our previous shredders this one is quiet. The strips are a little bit wide, but the last time I check there was no government regulation on how small you had to shred documents before placing them in the trash. I first one was damaged in shipment, but the return process went smooth and the second one worked great. The true test will be time. How long will it last?