Data destruction: hard drives

End-of-life storage media, such as hard drives, often contain very important data that is crucial to business security. Before the medium is handed over for repair, sale or disposal, data from the disc must be removed in an effective manner, i.e. making it impossible to recover it by any means.

How to destroy data from a hard drive? There are several methods – they differ from each other, among others, in terms of effectiveness, time needed to destroy data from one medium and the cost that must be incurred.

HDD degaussing

Hard drives are magnetic media, so degaussing will be effective. This is the method recommended by the NSA, the data cannot be recovered. After it is carried out, there is no need to physically destroy the medium, it is unnecessary, non-ecological and expensive (there is no need to “improve” an effective method). Degaussing your hard drive takes just a few seconds. This is an effective and ecological method – an excellent choice for people who care about data security. To degauss a hard drive, it is necessary to use a device called a degausser, which irrevocably destroys data from the medium.

To destroy data from hard drives or other magnetic media, companies and institutions have three options:

• purchase a professional degausser – it is important that the device generates a sufficiently strong magnetic field (minimum 11,000 Gauss),
• use the services of a specialized company that can provide appropriate ISO certificates for the services offered and customer references,
• rent a degausser for a specific time and number of data destruction cycles.

Other methods of destroying data from a hard drive

As mentioned earlier, data destruction is an extremely important issue from the point of view of business security. Hard drives (apart from degaussing) can also be “cleaned” with software. However, this is often a time-consuming procedure – deleting data from one medium may take up to several hours. Moreover, for the procedure to be effective, the media must be functional (unlike degaussing, where the disk may be damaged).

What other methods are there to destroy data from a hard drive? Many companies/institutions believe that information can be removed using, among others, the following methods:

• physical destruction of disks,
• software,
• burning,
• using a drill.

Data destruction: hard drives (physical destruction of the drive)

Is physical destruction of the disk (punctured, cut into small pieces) an effective way to destroy data? NO. Even if a hard drive is destroyed by a professional shredder, some data will still be left on the shreds. Recovering them is a time-consuming and expensive procedure, but it is possible. Moreover, it is much easier to recover rare earth metals from a degausseed disk than from a physically damaged disk – therefore, shredding the disk not only does not guarantee 100% data removal, but is also unecological.