Hard Drive Degaussing (Erasing) Versus Destruction

ITAMs or IT Asset Managers bear a great responsibility—planning for the proper disposal of any devices that contain or may contain sensitive or protected information. For many years, simply erasing hard drives and deleting files was sufficient. That is why companies like SpaceX trust our processes. More recently, however, data leaks have come from improperly disposed of storage devices.

How can one ensure full sanitization of the storage device? How about shredding it into tiny bits of material, case and all? Complete degaussing of a hard drive disrupts the magnetic striping, rendering the drive useless. Crushing and shredding digital storage, however, offers physical evidence that nobody can recover the media.

The NSA as well as large companies such as SpaceX have intensive requirements for the sanitization of storage devices. This is because their intellectual property is so valuable and sensitive. Our MediaDice and MediaVise lines work wonders for complete and total disruption of Solid State Drives (SSDs) for which degaussing simply does not work.

Our MediaVise HDD line causes total destruction of HDD platter and casing components by forcing large steel blades into the media with 20 tons of pressure. The platter will have been warped through not only the intense pressure but also distorted by the heat of friction. This will render the surface entirely inoperable.

While degaussing may yield a higher price for salvage and per-unit recycle value, the return on recycled drives is much lower than the cost of a data breach like those that Target and other businesses have faced in the recent years. Don’t sit on mountains of End of Life (EoL) storage devices or take the erasure route. You cannot be certain that they are thoroughly sanitized.

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Contact us and see how we can help you prevent any compromise to your Data Loss Prevention (DLP) plans.

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