Different Types of Data Destruction Methods

In this age when data is the new oil, data leakage is a big risk for corporations. Special attention is given to the hard drives that hold the company data, partner data and customer data. Secure data destruction from the IT assets that are at their end-of-life stage is one of the primary concerns of the companies. Ewaste companies are stepping forward to give multiple options to destroy data from the disk.

Here are the most common methods used to destroy data from the disk

Wiping

Wiping is done by connecting the disk with an electronic medium so that this data can no longer be read. The machines can wipe bulk devices at once. It can take up to an entire day for just one device. So a company that has a lot of devices might have to wait a long time to completely erase the data from all the devices.

Overwriting

Overwriting is an up-gradation to wiping as in overwriting data in binary form is overwritten on the drive several times in order to completely erase the old bits of data that need to be destroyed.

Degaussing

Ewaste companies use a degausser (a high-powered magnet) to destroy the data stored on the drives. Your device’s magnetic field is disrupted due to the high-powered magnet. This destroys the data on the device quickly and effectively. This is not recommended if you don’t want to re-use the device.

Physical Destruction

Also known as shredding, the devices are fed into a shredding machine where the drives are physically destroyed and shredded into little pieces for recycling.

In degaussing or physical destruction, the electronic recycling service provider issues and certificate about the data destruction task for the company.