Hard Drive Shredding And Other Data Deletion Methods

By Claudine MacDonald


A lot of service providers are now offering hard drive shredding Austin. Given the importance of securing private data, the services that they offer are indispensable to countless companies. One has to know of the countless ways that data destruction can be done and why there is a need for it to fully appreciate their roles.

Soft copies of data, even when deleted, could still be retrieved. They leave behind traces that even nonexperts are capable of accessing. Data may contain sensitive personal information such as health records, emails, credit and bank account numbers and passwords, or social security information. There have been a lot of identity theft cases and manipulation of data that have been reported. This calls for secure methods of handling them.

There are different means of destroying private information stored in hardware. Physical destruction can be done by any individual. Methods such as blowtorching, hammering, burning, or soaking in corrosive mixtures could be done. Each method have different degrees of effectiveness. However, these procedures could not be applied by companies. The large volume of data along with security measures would not make this possible. Safety measures also need to be taken into consideration. Professional service providers on these tasks would then be needed.

Overwriting is the first method that can be employed for deletion of data. This would wipe out software by replacing information with meaningless patterns of different characters. This can be done as a first step before degaussing. However, one pass would not be enough. More than one repetition is needed and this would require time, patience, and knowledge of the process. There are guidelines implemented by the US DOD for this.

The next process is to degauss. This would cause loss of magnetic fields that is a mechanism for storing information. Rare natural magnets or devices can be used. They have to be capable of transmitting electromechanical pulses powerful enough to cancel magnetic fields. Purchasing of equipment that are capable of doing this is not recommended because different models have different specifications that are intended for different drives.

Crushing equipment are also available for use. Extreme pressure can be exerted by these devices to hardware so they will get destroyed. They can be powered by electrical sources or operated manually. However, operation of these devices can only be done to smaller quantities. Not like degaussing, data is not destroyed but retrieving it will be hard given the physical destruction.

Hardware can be shredded. There are machines that are capable of doing that. They can shred countless devices such as cell phones, electronic organizers, and PDAs. There are lots of varieties of them available. Some can even destroy a maximum of 2,500 drives in an hour. Just like crushing methods, information is still there but is almost impossible to retrieve as they are cut into small strips.

Rotary knife mills, known as a disintegrators, are capable of incinerating materials to very small pieces. They actually apply same principles as shredders but are more powerful. The end products would be hard to reconstruct or recognize anymore. Data, though not erased, is impossible to retrieve since the material holding them have been turned to smaller pieces. However, there are more maintenance needs compared to shredders.

Hard drive shredding Austin is commonly outsourced by many companies these days. Companies and different establishments know the importance of their services. Their expertise are valuable in protecting customers and organizations.




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