Storage Effect

Verity’s Hard Drive Destroyer: do-it-yourself drive crushing

June 19, 2008 · 1 Comment

Cool, but encryption is a kindler and gentler way to retire disk drives

Blocks and Files highlighted this very physical solution to a data management problem: how to be sure sensitive data on retired disk drives never again sees the light of day.  It’s a do-it-yourself version of industrial disk crushers.

Verity’s quite excited about the Hard Drive Destroyer, and I know it fills a desperate need.  But it’s not very resource-efficient nor environmentally friendly.  That’s a perfectly good drive!  Can’t someone else use it? 

The renewable alternative: self-encrypting hard drives like the Momentus FDE and BlackArmor.  When it’s time to retire, throw away the AES-grade encryption key, and Poof! - what was once written will never be seen again.  Certifiably so

Momentus FDE is a notebook drive. The first enterprise FDE drive will be the Seagate Cheetah 15K .  Stay tuned.

Who’s destroying drives out there?  Anyone willing to admit they’re ignoring this problem and reusing drives?  

Categories: Data Security · Digital Home · Laptop PC
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1 response so far ↓

  • JMAC // December 9, 2008 at 5:18 pm | Reply

    The only safe way is degaussing. Destroying is not nearly as effective as degaussing but it is way better that overwriting or encrypting. Overwrites and encryption are like a three tumbler lock on a cash register. The best way to play is remove the cash. Hard drive destroying is very environmentally friendly. Have you ever seen a heavy metal mine? Re-using the raw materials is much better.

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