Aurora Professional Grade AU125MA 120-Sheet Auto Feed High-Security Micro-Cut Paper Shredder/60 Minutes/Security Level P-5

Our old Fellowes machine (425ci) that I took home after my office closed was a beast but was abused by office peeps and finally died after 5 years of home use. This Aurora AU125 MA machine is a serious piece of shredding equipment at a great price point, equal in power to the Fellows at a fraction the cost. The ability to load a huge stack of paper (up to 120 8.5x11 sheets) and have it automatically shred the lot is FANTASTIC. This is hands down my favorite feature. We've been processing lots of paperwork from an estate and this machine has made quick work of stacks and stacks of shredding. Favorite features: 1) Automatically shreds stacks of papers so you don't have to baby sit it, inserting 10 sheets at a time, tho it handles manual insertion of media as well. I'm assuming this only works with stacks of uniformly sized papers. 2) I love how the shredding (business part) of the shredder can be lifted up off the base if needed. This makes it easy to clean the shredding teeth on occasion, and clean out the base. The drawer slides out from the front as you'd expect, when you need to empty. 3) It's extremely quiet! it's probably the most quiet shredder I've ever used. And it cross shreds to P5 size pieces. 4) The casters make it easy to wheel out from under desk when you want to do serious amounts of shredding. It's a pretty heavy machine, so being able to glide it on casters is key. 5) Holds a huge amount of shredded material. The only thing I can think to improve would be to have handles on the short sides to make it easier to pull out from under desk. There is a large groove that runs around 3 sides where the shredder part rests on the base. It's possible to grab the shredder by the groove/lip to pull out from under desk but dedicated handles would be nice.

Great shredder. The auto feeder is the best feature! Initially I was going to buy an 8 sheet manual feed model but this one appears to be a work horse and is really compact. Ensure you don’t feed more sheets of paper than the specs call for though (10) because the motor tends to bog down. In fact to be safe, only feed it 8 sheets at a time and remember to oil it after each emptying. Wouldn’t use this model with small children around because the cutters are exposed and still spinning if the auto feeder lid is opened before the motor stops. Little fingers would be destroyed if they touched the cutter. I have no children around though so I’m safe. You won’t be disappointed. It’s a solid, high level security, compact shredder.

The collecting bin is all plastic and somewhat flimsy. It’s very functional and the head unit mates snugly against its crevices. The head unit is VERY heavy. Coming from someone who uses your cheap $30 paper shredder unit, the head assembly is over 30lbs and that makes sense. Right away, it’s easy to assemble and operate. It’s very quiet compared to your cheap department store models. I have not test its longevity or its endurance. I’ll update later on but as of now, I’m quite happy with the purchase.

In a few weeks of ownership this little shredder has gone thru tens of thousands of pages as part of a shredding project I had to go through. It works great, and is able to work continuously for at least its rated time before overheating (maybe more). My technique is to feed in a few pages, then another batch and keep the thing running but not working too hard (you can tell from the sound it makes when you have fed in enough to make it work harder than it should). The downside is its auto feeder feature is completely worthless. It simply doesn't work. I suppose it might have been possible to figure out a VERY small number of sheets to load into the auto-feeder, but then whats the point of using the auto feeder if it can only handle about 10 pages? Treat this like an inexpensive, robust shredder that you hand-feed a half-dozen pages into over and over again for an hour and you'll be happy with it. Do 10 pages at a time and it'll run for maybe 30 minutes before overheating, and you'll have to clear a few jams (which are easy to do and the shredder automatically will reverse for just a bit to make clearing it easy).

It produces 2in sprites long, this is not even P4 certified. The 1st delivery had a broken gear which felt inside the bin at the first use and making weird clong noise. The second one had a broken plastic piece in the bin, there are obviously some small parts traveling inside the head you can hear when turning around the heavy beast... I stop here, I will not order a 3rd one... I'm done. This is weak material even if it's super heavy, and the 2in cuts are not acceptable for a supposed P5. On the picture you can see the metal gear bit and 2 examples of 2in cuts.

I waited for several months before reviewing this shredder. It is very impressive. As noted in the description, it shreds things into very small pieces which can't be reconstructed which is great. The size is just right....not to large and easy to keep near my chair. The paper is shredded into such small pieces that it fits a lot of material into the waste bin. I had a bad experience with my previous shredder: As one would expect, ocassionally a metalic object is mixed with the shredded paper and jams the mechanism. For most shredders, this is a problem as you have to disassemble the shredder input to relieve the jam. This can't be done with most shredders. However, the top of the Aurora shredder gives access so you can remove metailic jams. Also, it is very convenient that you can insert a large wad of paper in the top feeder and let the shredder do it's thing...Very cool. I am really very impressed with this device. It was well designed and thought out. I didn't rate the customer service cause I didn't have to use them....All is good.

I am very happy with this purchase. It is a robust machine, does not produce much noise and is very efficient. It shreds paper to tiny bits. I just bought a second unit to be used at another location.

Broke after very little use, the same day it arrived. Quickly refunded, so nothing lost.

Heavy top. Did not work at all. Had to return it. Poor design.