With the cost of data breaches continuously rising each year, secure methods of data destruction are more important than ever. Destroying data reduces your risk of data breaches from both internal and external sources by making it inaccessible to users.
Ultimately, physical methods of destruction like shredding are the only solutions you can rely on to permanently get rid of your data. This guide will explain why by comparing today’s most common data destruction methods.
What Is Shredding?
Shredding is an end-of-life (EOL) data destruction method that involves physically destroying storage media by shredding it into many small pieces with specialized equipment. It’s an efficient and highly secure method used across various industries, including but not limited to:
- Health care
- Government and military
- Data centers
- Tech companies
- Financial services
How Do You Shred Storage Media?
Typically, you need a specially designed industrial shredder to destroy storage media such as hard disk drives (HDDs), solid state drives (SSDs) and even larger devices. These machines work similarly to paper shredders, though they’re significantly more powerful.
The model of shredder you need depends on the type and volume of devices you need to shred. Larger devices or high-volume loads will require larger shredders, while smaller devices and low-volume batches will have significantly less intensive needs.
Modern shredding machines can automatically sort through these materials and separate them into their recyclable categories for easy disposal.
What Is the Difference Between Degaussing and Shredding?
Both degaussing and shredding destroy data by rendering the storage device inoperable. Where degaussing leaves the drive intact, shredding destroys the drive by reducing it to pieces that are only a few millimeters in size. These pieces can be recycled if properly sorted.
What Is Degaussing?
Degaussing involves erasing data from a drive by rearranging its particles with a powerful magnetic field. It works by passing a degaussing coil through a controlled magnetic field, which causes the hard drive’s data to become scrambled beyond recognition.
Sir Charles Goodeve, a Canadian naval officer, developed the method to disable submerged German magnetic mines during WWII. He named it after Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, an 18th-century German physicist who made significant contributions to the study of magnetism.
How Effective Is Degaussing?
As long as the degausser used meets key National Security Agency Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) requirements, degaussing is a quick and effective method for destroying large volumes of data in traditional storage media.
That said, degaussing does come with some drawbacks. Because the hard drive is no longer operable, it’s impossible to verify whether the data still exists without using a costly electron microscope. The rise of quantum computing has also raised questions about whether degaussing will remain effective in the future.
Finally, many modern storage media are denser than previous models, which makes them ineligible for degaussing.
Does Degaussing Destroy a Hard Drive?
While degaussing renders a hard drive unusable, it does not destroy the drive. Degaussing scrambles the magnetic patterns that store the data, which makes the data inaccessible through conventional hacking methods. However, the drive itself remains physically intact.
Can a Degaussed Hard Drive Be Recovered?
Degaussed hard drives cannot be recovered using conventional techniques, but advancements in technology may soon give hackers new opportunities to steal data from degaussed media. Many data centers are phasing out degaussing as a data destruction method to prepare for quantum computing.
What Is Wiping?
Wiping a hard drive involves overwriting sensitive data on the storage device without losing storage capacity. It works by overlaying a pattern of ones and zeroes over the specified data, which hides it from the computer’s operating system.
While the wiped data isn’t easily accessible anymore, it’s still present and intact on the drive. Malicious actors can use advanced hacking techniques to find and extract the data.
What Is the Difference Between Degaussing and Wiping?
Although wiping and degaussing are similar in that the drive itself remains intact after completion, wiping allows you to continue using the drive. Degaussing renders the drive completely inoperable by rearranging its magnetic alignment.
Which Data Destruction Method Is the Most Effective?
When you understand how each method works, you can clearly see how each one compares to the others in terms of effectiveness.
Wiping vs. Degaussing
Where degaussing involves destroying data by rendering it unusable, wiping overwrites intact data. It makes sense, then, that wiping is a less effective method of data destruction than degaussing.
Degaussing vs. Shredding
While degaussing was once the gold standard for data destruction, it’s becoming clear that shredding is the only true way to ensure your sensitive information stays within your organization. Because future hackers could begin using quantum computing techniques to recover and extract sensitive data from degaussed drives, physically destroying the storage drives eliminates the risk by breaking the data up and recycling the drive’s materials.
Shredding vs. Wiping
Unlike wiping, which allows you to reuse the drive after completion, shredding physically destroys the drive and any data on it, so there is no chance anyone can recover the information on it. Rather than wiping each device before throwing it out, organizations should shred it to ensure the data is truly gone.
Why Choose On-Site Shredding Solutions for Your Sensitive Media?
Having an industrial shredding machine on your organization’s campus eliminates the need to outsource data destruction by providing your staff with a secure and convenient means of data destruction.
Some of the most significant benefits of on-site shredding solutions include:
- Cost savings: While purchasing a shredding machine involves an initial investment, it is more cost-effective in the long run than relying on outsourcing services because it eliminates the need to pay for shipping and service fees.
- Increased security: An on-site solution means your drives never have to leave your facility, which can also help you ensure no external actors are accessing your data.
- Environmental benefits: As environmental regulations become stricter, companies must find ways to adapt processes. Shredding machines with automated sorting capabilities make it easy to recycle all your scrap material while adhering to your region’s sustainability requirements.
Securely Destroy Your Data With Shredding Solutions From Phiston
Whether you need to shred SSDs, HDDs or larger devices such as mobile phones and printers, Phiston Technologies offers industrial shredding machines your organization can use to protect itself.
Multi-stage disintegrators and shredders like the MediaDice® All Media Disintegrator A2 and the All Media Disintegrator A10 can help you destroy all types of storage media, from SSDs to switches and laptops. Plus, the automatic jam recovery capability helps eliminate the risk of exceeding the shredder’s capacity by automatically stopping the machine once the load passes a defined threshold.
If your organization has moved on from hard disk drives, SSD-specific shredders like the MediaDice® SSD Disintegrator-2C and the High Thru-Put SSD Destroyer can help you destroy large volumes of SSDs on-site. Eliminate risk from HDDs, SSDs and more simultaneously with our MediaDice® Combo Disintegrator, which is designed specifically for large-scale shred events.
Adding accessories like the MediaVision® Scanner and the MediaVault® Adjustable Bin enables you to retain mission-critical data while destroying and recycling all other sensitive information on your devices.
Contact us today to learn more about our machines or to request a free quote.
