How do you dispose of … RESOLVED

[french frank]

… defunct external hard drives? If not just smashed with a sledge hammer, what security measures are needed?

[BBMmk2]

Our local amenity site deals with that. Is there one near you?

[Nick Armstrong]

… defunct external hard drives? If not just smashed with a sledge hammer, what security measures are needed?

Same as internal ones - rendering the actual hard drive platters utterly unreadable is the only 100% safe way.

I'm dealing with this at the moment, in the context of upgrades to SSD coinciding with leaving legal practice. My HDDs have been used for work for between 5 and 10 years and have all sorts of confidential data about 'interesting' clients. I've taken a lump hammer to them - the MacBook Pro discs were made of glass, and shattered into a thousand pieces ... the iMac annoyingly had very tough metal platters - I've bent them in the middle, then hammered them flat into semi-circles; and am taking them to a friend's with a workshop, where I intend to saw each in two, and dispose of each set of halves in different locations.

That ought to do it !

[ChrisBennell]

I drill right through them with a quarter inch drill (twice)! Then take them to the recycling depot.

[french frank]

The cases don't seem to have an easy way in. Looks like a hammer and bolster job.

[teamsaint]

Same as internal ones - rendering the actual hard drive platters utterly unreadable is the only 100% safe way.

I'm dealing with this at the moment, in the context of upgrades to SSD coinciding with leaving legal practice. My HDDs have been used for work for between 5 and 10 years and have all sorts of confidential data about 'interesting' clients. I've taken a lump hammer to them - the MacBook Pro discs were made of glass, and shattered into a thousand pieces ... the iMac annoyingly had very tough metal platters - I've bent them in the middle, then hammered them flat into semi-circles; and am taking them to a friend's with a workshop, where I intend to saw each in two, and dispose of each set of halves in different locations.

That ought to do it !

yup, should do.

do any of your friends have 2 year old children though? handing the drives to them might be quicker and easier.

[Nick Armstrong]

The cases don't seem to have an easy way in. Looks like a hammer and bolster job.

There are usually lots of little 'star' type screws ("torx") - and I did need to splash out a princely £1.99 on this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/31-piece-precision-screwdriver-set-a90ub

do any of your friends have 2 year old children though? handing the drives to them might be quicker and easier.

Damn it, yes - neighbour friends have a very 'creative' little girl exactly that age

[Dave2002]

I drill right through them with a quarter inch drill (twice)! Then take them to the recycling depot.

I think you have to drill more than that to be absolutely sure. I have a friend who simply blows them up - but then he does work for organisations with that capability.

Does putting them on a bonfire work? Or on a nice hot charcoal fire?

[Nick Armstrong]

I have a friend who simply blows them up - but then he does work for organisations with that capability.

Arguably a trifle over-the-top?

(The metal ones I'm dealing with seem as if they might be the only things that would survive an explosion )

[Richard Barrett]

If not just smashed with a sledge hammer

The hammer approach is very satisfying in my experience. If the casing is recalcitrant, dropping the unit out of a second-storey window works wonders.

[Nick Armstrong]

The hammer approach is very satisfying in my experience.

Yes beating the little beggers into flat semi-circles with my 4lb lump hammer was great!

[ChrisBennell]

I think you have to drill more than that to be absolutely sure. I have a friend who simply blows them up - but then he does work for organisations with that capability.

Does putting them on a bonfire work? Or on a nice hot charcoal fire?

It's all a question of what is cost-effective. Drilling them creates shattered and splintered platters internally, and only takes a minute. I can't imagine anyone looking through a huge Local Authority skip for the odd hard drive to salvage. Agreed that a specialist forensic company might have a slim chance. I wouldn't like to try a bonfire. These things have precious metals in them I believe, and who knows what gases they might give off!

[Zucchini]

… defunct external hard drives? If not just smashed with a sledge hammer, what security measures are needed?

The safest thing to do is to stick fluorescent labels on them saying:

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vols 1 -22
Quantum Electrodynamics for Nobel Prize winners
My catalogue and descriptions of 5,297 traffic lights

Then bin them or post them to an old people's home

[french frank]

The safest thing to do is to stick fluorescent labels on them saying:

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vols 1 -22
Quantum Electrodynamics for Nobel Prize winners
My catalogue and descriptions of 5,297 traffic lights

Then bin them or post them to an old people's home

Reminds me of WH Auden saying if a stranger in a train asked him his occupation he found the most satisfactory reply was 'Medieval Historian' because it "withers curiosity". Thus may one wither curiosity as to the contents of a discarded hard drive.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The trouble with this Thread title is that on the "What's New?" page, I keep reading "How do you dispose of french frank today at 16:48"!