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Destroying decommissioned hard drives - Kyng - 06-07-2023

https://www.techspot.com/news/98981-destroying-decommissioned-hard-drives-all-about-risk-management.html



Bottom line: Millions of hard drives are retired annually when their warranties expire, even if they are still in perfect operating condition. The overwhelming majority of these drives are not sent in for refurbishing or otherwise repurposed. Rather, they are destroyed.

The Circular Drive Initiative (CDI), a consortium of technology companies promoting the reuse of storage hardware, estimates that nine out of 10 drives are destroyed upon decommission.

According to CDI secretary and treasurer Jonmichael Hands, shredding hard drives may not be enough to thwart a determined hacker. A person with the right tools and know-how could glean data off a platter as small as 3mm, Hands said.

For major cloud service providers like the ones Hands spoke with, the nuclear option is the only option. "They have a zero-risk policy. It can't be one in a million drives, one in 10 million drives, one in 100 million drives that leaks. It has to be zero."


Yeah, shredding hard drives that are in perfectly good condition might seem wasteful, but knowing just how much data can be stored on them, and how sensitive that data can be... there's not really any other option.

Although, it is somewhat disconcerting that people with the right skills and tools can recover some data even from shredded hard drives - so, that might not be going far enough :-/ ...

RE: Destroying decommissioned hard drives - Moonshroom - 06-07-2023

When my 3 GB HDD was no longer functioning and I had to retire it, I made sure to dunk it on water and kick the sh*t out of it before smashing it with tools... it had way too many passwords and personal pics.

RE: Destroying decommissioned hard drives - Kyng - 06-07-2023

(06-07-2023, 10:04 PM)Moonshroom Wrote: When my 3 GB HDD was no longer functioning and I had to retire it, I made sure to dunk it on water and kick the sh*t out of it before smashing it with tools... it had way too many passwords and personal pics.

Well, sounds like you had fun doing that :lol: . And hopefully, it was enough to stop any of that from falling into the wrong hands!

RE: Destroying decommissioned hard drives - Moonshroom - 06-07-2023

(06-07-2023, 10:43 PM)Kyng Wrote:
(06-07-2023, 10:04 PM)Moonshroom Wrote: When my 3 GB HDD was no longer functioning and I had to retire it, I made sure to dunk it on water and kick the sh*t out of it before smashing it with tools... it had way too many passwords and personal pics.

Well, sounds like you had fun doing that :lol: . And hopefully, it was enough to stop any of that from falling into the wrong hands!

If they wanted my data that badly, at that point I would just hand it to them XD