What Are The Methods For Data Destruction?
One of the most important things we can do during this day and age is taken care of our technology and the data that they contain. However, a lot of people do not take the time or care required to properly protect their data when the time comes for them to dispose of technology that is no longer needed or become out of date. While a lot of people will resort to simply deleting the information, files, or data off of their device before getting rid of it, this is not the same as data destruction. Deleted data can still be retrieved. Your data needs to be destroyed and to do this, you are left with mainly three options:
Your data needs to be destroyed and to do this, you are left with mainly three options. Overwriting: The process of covering up your old data with brand new, less sensitive information; Degaussing: A process that erases the magnetic field surrounding your storage device; Physical Destruction: Simply the process of removing your disk and shredding it.
These are the methods or techniques that are recommended by a lot of professional data security brands. However, it is important to know that each of these methods comes with their own perks and drawbacks.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these techniques:
Overwriting
Perhaps the most commonly used method for data destruction, overwriting is a method of getting rid of the residual data that remains once you delete or erase it. Some people may not know, but when you simply delete data, there are still residual representations of this data within your storage media. This data sits there until it is replaced by new data being written onto the drive. Overwriting helps speed up this process and destroy the residual representation of your old data by replacing it with new info.
This method can be done quickly using specific software and comes at a relatively low cost to the user. One of the other reasons this is a popular method of data destruction is that it is quick to do and usually only takes on pass through. However, the downside to this is that the more data you have on a drive the longer it can take to overwrite. It is also possible that this method will not be able to reach into all of the recesses of your drive to remove every ounce of data.
Degaussing
This is the method of removing the magnetic field of your data storage device or hard drive using a degausser. This can be a quick method for data destruction on small to medium sized storage devices, and is recommended because it renders the data totally unrecoverable. However, this is a rather expensive method that can cause some collateral damage to your hard drives.
Physical Destruction
Whether it is disk shredding or melting, the physical destruction method for data destruction is anything that involves the storage media being rendered unusable and unreadable. When it comes to using this method, one of the major benefits is that it gives you a great certainty that your data is destroyed and gone forever as there is no way someone could recover your data from a totally destroyed drive. However, one of the major disadvantages of this method is that it can be rather expensive and is not a very sustainable long-term data destruction strategy. Contact us today to get started on data destruction for your electronics.