What is degaussing and why is it important?

Having a secure destroying solution for your hard drives is crucial to your data protection! Here’s what you should know about effectively destroying your hard drives and SSDs, what degaussing is and why it’s important.

What is degaussing?

Degaussing removes data on electronic media by rearranging the magnetic field to completely erase it. Hard drives and other electronic storage devices store data within layers of magnetic fields. A degausser device randomizes the patterns of magnetization by alternating fields of magnetic amplitude, creating data that is irrecoverable.

It’s important to realize that while degaussing is the best way to destroy data on traditional hard drives; it is not effective on SSDs because SSDs do not have a magnetic field. For destruction of SSDs you will want a destroyer such as the MVC-SSD that will puncture, crush and demolish every square inch of the SSD rendering all data storage surfaces destroyed.

Learn more about destroying HHDs vs. SSDs here.

Is degaussing the final step in data destruction?

Although degaussing is an effective method for erasing data, the NSA recommends that the media by physically destroyed or shredded after degaussing. And since degaussing SSDs doesn’t work, shredding is also an effective method of data destruction for these as well.

Many standard shredders will only shred to 1” particle size, leaving sensitive information intact and retrievable if memory chips slip through the hammers that shred the data. However, a product like the MediaVice Rackmount Dual sanitizer (MVR-DS) will do both–degauss and crush media on site. It is the first and only degausser and media crusher in one where the media is fed into the two-tiered degausser/crusher machine that then uses 2 Tesla magnetic flux and 20 tons of hydraulic force to destroy every bit of data.

Choosing the right media destruction product for your needs can be confusing. However, our team at Phiston Technologies can help you find the product that will fully destroy any storage device and make your information 100% unreadable.

Call us for more information or check out our products today!

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