Hard drives can pose a massive threat to an individual or a business if not discarded correctly. It is not uncommon to come across stories on how cybercriminals leveraged old hard drives to steal the personal information of customers, staff, or even individuals. The popular September 2017 case of Coca-Cola came to mind when a bad actor stole old hard drives from the company causing a data breach of the personal records of over 8000 employees. It cost the company a potential $1 million fraud reimbursement.
Fortunately, your business doesn’t have to face the same fate as hard drive destruction service can help you dispose of these storage devices correctly. Still, if you choose to destroy a hard drive on your own, here are the tips.
Shredding
Hard drive shredding is one of the most effective ways to destroy a hard drive without evidence. All you have to do is run the hard drive through a shredder machine. It cuts the hardware into tiny bits rendering the drive useless. There is no way to extract data from a shredded hard drive. But we strongly recommend you choose a hard drive destruction service because these services use shredders and compactors to destroy hard drives successfully. It will be expensive to invest in these devices if you want to destroy hundreds of hard drives.
The shredding process also releases environmental contaminants and tiny particles that can harm you. This is why you must leave the job for the professionals.
Degaussing
To destroy a hard drive without evidence, you can degauss them. A hard drive destruction service uses a device with strong magnetic force to scramble the hard drive platter in this method. This destroys any data on the hard drive leaving no evidence. This method alters the magnetic direction of the drive, but there is a limitation of degaussing.
If you buy a degausser to destroy only one hard drive, it does not justify the expense. Furthermore, the device requires expertise to destroy the hard drive correctly. Some people think they can use an ordinary magnet to degauss a hard drive, but they need to be corrected. The magnetic energy required to destroy a hard drive successfully cannot be generated from an ordinary magnet.
Drilling
If you are desperately looking for a way to destroy our hard drive at home such that there is no evidence left, then you can try drilling. Putting holes in our hard drive eliminates its platter, ensuring that nobody can access data on it. You do not require a hard drive destruction service for this. Just use a standard hand drill or a nail gun to put holes in the hard drive.
What to keep in mind when destroying a hard drive?
Destroying a hard drive is a decision that should not be taken lightly. For your business, no customer or staff data must be compromised. While you can rely on one of the methods listed above to destroy a hard drive without evidence, the best practice is to use more than one method to ensure complete data destruction.
Hire a hard drive destruction service from Thames Security Shredding because the professionals can handle the task much more efficiently. Destroying hard drives on your own can be dangerous, and the process reduces environmental contaminants that should be adequately managed. Professional hard drive destruction services have the equipment, experience, and expertise to ensure hard drives are rendered useless.
Conclusion
You can always be safe when it comes to data protection and privacy. This is why you must always ensure to get rid of data on the hard drives when you’re getting rid of the old stuff.
