After years of use, computer hard drives contain an abundance of sensitive personal data. This is infinitely more true for business hard drives that may contain company assets or customer information. That’s why it’s so important to know how to dispose of old hard drives safely. In many cases, however, simply cleaning the disk is not enough; savvy people can sometimes still recover data from an erased disk. This is where hard drive shredding comes in.
You can usually shred a hard drive at electronics recycling centers or industrial data destruction companies (the same places that offer commercial paper shredding services). Prices can range from $7 to $20 each way. However, hard drive shredding is a service typically offered exclusively to commercial wholesale customers. The destruction cost per hard drive will often be lower for higher unit volumes. These service providers fully expect to manage hundreds of hard drives in a single order.
This is a valuable service because completely destroying your hard drives is the only way to be 100% sure that no one will recover your sensitive data. But it’s worth keeping in mind that the value of hard drives has increased after recent shortages. Unless absolutely necessary, do not throw away old hard drives that you can still use; there may be financially prudent ways to reuse them.
Other ways to destroy old hard drives
Nicolas St-Germain/Shutterstock
If you’re determined to destroy your old hard drives, but shredding services aren’t readily available to you, there are other ways to dispose of them safely. After all, shredding can be prohibitively expensive unless you’re placing a bulk order on behalf of a company. There are some DIY methods you can follow at home, but keep in mind that they may not be as thorough or effective as a professional disposal service.
First, to dispel a common myth, soaking your hard drive in water is not an effective way to destroy it. Hard disk drives (HDDs) store data magnetically rather than electronically, so water does not affect the data in any way. SSDs are electronic, but they store data in sealed, moisture-resistant NAND flash chips, making the data able to survive water damage.
Breaking, crushing or drilling a hard drive is an effective way to destroy it – just be sure to wear appropriate eye protection when doing so. And know that a truly dedicated person might still be able to recover data from chunks of a hard drive destroyed this way. This is why you should always play it safe and be careful about which files should never be stored on a hard drive in the first place.
