4 ms·

This seems unneeded waste, maybe 10 random complete writes (or/and usage of paranoid safe deletion utilities) would be sufficient to erase the disk effectively?

fortran77 4y ago
That requires connecting the drive to a working computer and hours of time. Compared to several quick blows. The metals in the drive can still be recycled even if the glass platters are shattered.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  Since when are the platters glass?
  - fortran77 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_platter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_platter
    - roughly 4y ago
      Huh, TIL. And a link from there to explain why: https://books.google.com/books?id=BjoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=hard+disk+glass&pg=PT7 https://books.google.com/books?id=BjoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=hard+disk+...
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      I had no idea, but it turns out they're a mix: > Platters are typically made using an aluminium, glass or ceramic substrate. As of 2015, laptop hard drive platters are made from glass while aluminum platters are often found in desktop computers. > In 1990, Toshiba released the MK1122FC, the first hard drive to use a glass substrate... It was originally designed for laptops, for which the greater shock resistance of glass substrates are more suitable.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Dalewyn 4y ago
The first rule of erasing a drive is you can't erase a drive, whether it's a solid state or hard drive. If you want or need to render the data on a drive inaccessible by any and all means, there really is no option other than physical destruction of the drive.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  If you use full disk encryption, all you have to do is throw away the key. Works for solid state and hard drives.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Disk encryption has always been advised for mitigating incidental leakage of data, such as stolen laptops or thumb drives that go missing. But my understanding, both as an industry standard and as common sense (insofar as common as computer literacy is), is that the only true way to ensure data destruction is total physical destruction of the physical medium the data resides on.
bombcar 4y ago
Physical destruction is “for sure” but a simple full wipe and reinstall is fine for most people. But most people don’t even bother. And with browsers saving passwords it’s probably even a worse idea now.
fbdab103 4y ago
Single pass disk encryption or zeroing is fine if you are not facing a nation state actor. I do not think I have seen any credible threats that over-written data extraction works on modern drives. Maybe there are tricks where the SSD knows better and allocates blocks off to the side where it is not getting wiped, but those are supposedly addressed by TRIM (with dubious vendor support) If someone comes across a drive that is zeroed or randomized, who is going to attempt some forensic investigation to retrieve the contents?
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Zeroing it is fine no matter who you're facing, to be honest. The NSA don't have some big magic machine that can recover data that's been overwritten. It's gone. The idea of using some latent amount of data on the disk and somehow averaging it all out to get the old data might maybe have worked a tiny bit on old MFM drives in the 1980s.
- fortran77 4y ago
  I'm not worried about a nation state spending a billion dollars. I'm worried about someone looking at an unalloated section of the drive, or in the sectors that the drive marked "bad", etc. A low-level 0 write just takes a long time on a drive of even 1TB. So I sledge. And then I can look at the drive and know it's OK to toss.
maxerickson 4y ago
If it was used for very long it will be old enough to not really be worth much anyway.
wlonkly 4y ago
The problem I run into when I finally go through my e-waste (usually when moving house) is that I no longer have any devices capable of operating the thing I'm recycling. Last time around it was IDE drives.
brokenmachine 4y ago
That would take a lot longer than the sledgehammer method.

fortran77 4y ago

That requires connecting the drive to a working computer and hours of time. Compared to several quick blows. The metals in the drive can still be recycled even if the glass platters are shattered.

BenjiWiebe 4y ago
Since when are the platters glass?
- fortran77 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_platter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_platter
  - roughly 4y ago
    Huh, TIL. And a link from there to explain why: https://books.google.com/books?id=BjoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=hard+disk+glass&pg=PT7 https://books.google.com/books?id=BjoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=hard+disk+...
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    I had no idea, but it turns out they're a mix: > Platters are typically made using an aluminium, glass or ceramic substrate. As of 2015, laptop hard drive platters are made from glass while aluminum platters are often found in desktop computers. > In 1990, Toshiba released the MK1122FC, the first hard drive to use a glass substrate... It was originally designed for laptops, for which the greater shock resistance of glass substrates are more suitable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Dalewyn 4y ago

The first rule of erasing a drive is you can't erase a drive, whether it's a solid state or hard drive. If you want or need to render the data on a drive inaccessible by any and all means, there really is no option other than physical destruction of the drive.

crazygringo 4y ago
If you use full disk encryption, all you have to do is throw away the key. Works for solid state and hard drives.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Disk encryption has always been advised for mitigating incidental leakage of data, such as stolen laptops or thumb drives that go missing. But my understanding, both as an industry standard and as common sense (insofar as common as computer literacy is), is that the only true way to ensure data destruction is total physical destruction of the physical medium the data resides on.

bombcar 4y ago

Physical destruction is “for sure” but a simple full wipe and reinstall is fine for most people. But most people don’t even bother. And with browsers saving passwords it’s probably even a worse idea now.

fbdab103 4y ago

Single pass disk encryption or zeroing is fine if you are not facing a nation state actor. I do not think I have seen any credible threats that over-written data extraction works on modern drives. Maybe there are tricks where the SSD knows better and allocates blocks off to the side where it is not getting wiped, but those are supposedly addressed by TRIM (with dubious vendor support) If someone comes across a drive that is zeroed or randomized, who is going to attempt some forensic investigation to retrieve the contents?

Gordonjcp 4y ago
Zeroing it is fine no matter who you're facing, to be honest. The NSA don't have some big magic machine that can recover data that's been overwritten. It's gone. The idea of using some latent amount of data on the disk and somehow averaging it all out to get the old data might maybe have worked a tiny bit on old MFM drives in the 1980s.
fortran77 4y ago
I'm not worried about a nation state spending a billion dollars. I'm worried about someone looking at an unalloated section of the drive, or in the sectors that the drive marked "bad", etc. A low-level 0 write just takes a long time on a drive of even 1TB. So I sledge. And then I can look at the drive and know it's OK to toss.

maxerickson 4y ago

If it was used for very long it will be old enough to not really be worth much anyway.

wlonkly 4y ago

The problem I run into when I finally go through my e-waste (usually when moving house) is that I no longer have any devices capable of operating the thing I'm recycling. Last time around it was IDE drives.

brokenmachine 4y ago

That would take a lot longer than the sledgehammer method.