Video: The ultimate in hard drive security
November 9, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security, Solutions
Yeah, yeah! Paper shredders are very important. But what about a hard disk shredder?
Yes, there are tools for erasing (“Scrubbing”, “degaussing”) hard disks so that no-one can read the old contents and the disks can be reused.
But let’s face it. Older hard disks are pretty puny compared with today’s low cost one terabyte (1,000GB) drives. Old drives are just not useful, and the cost in IT man-hours for setting up and running the scrubbing software can be pretty high.
A more basic and cost-effective solution: Throw the drives into an over-sized shredding machine. (Check out this video to see an example.)
Hard disk shredding is performed by a number of services around the country. The cost is pretty good: one company, for example, quotes $7 per drive, with $4 per drive if you send over 100. You can ship the drives yourself, or, if you need tight security, you can arrange for a secure door-to-door delivery. Some companies will even bring the hungry monster to your site.
Here’s where to start looking.
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Tags: erasing data, hard drives, shredding
November 11th, 2009 at 10:23 am
A half-inch HSS drill bit will do just fine. Just punch 2 or 3 holes thru the entire drive, being sure to hit the disk platters each time. Rest assured that the data on that drive will not be recoverable without extrodanary effort.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
One huge industrial magnet ought to do the trick. You can probably get some huge comapny tax incentive on it as well for going green, as it is “recyclable”. =)
February 15th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Sending them somewhere, that is not easy to swallow, have them destroyed on-site. A fool proof way is to actually destroy the hard drive completely.
Using a drill leaves 80% of the disks intact, with data, unless the disks are glass.
And if you have it done by a profesional company, they will recycle the destroyed hard drive anyway.