Data Erasure Software and Management Solutions

Make sure all the NAND chips are broken for destruction or use an erasure software that has been validated by Ontrack.

Data erasure is the removal of data from a storage device such that it cannot be recovered. Data erasure software writes a repeating pattern of 1’s and 0’s over all of the data locations on a hard drive or SSD so that the original data is no longer accessible. The software also removes all data from temporary locations.

Best practices involve using data erasure software to securely overwrite data on hard drives and SSDs, including the hidden areas and remapped sectors. Erasure is done per government standards such as NIST, DOD, and many more.

Erasure software is used before the drives are transported to equipment for physical destruction to eliminate the possibility of data being intercepted during transport. Physical destruction on hard disk drives can be done with a degausser that uses a powerful magnetic field, which erases not only the data but removes the servo tracks, making the media unusable. The most permanent and final destruction solution involves the use of granulators, also known as shredders. These machines rip, tear, or smash a hard drive or SSD into pieces so small that data cannot be recovered from the media or memory chips.

Data erasure is the removal of data from a storage device such that it cannot be recovered. Data erasure software repeatedly writes a pattern of 1’s and 0’s over all of the data locations on a hard drive or SSD so that the original data is no longer accessible. The software also removes all data from temporary locations. File erasure software allows the user to target all instances of specific files to be erased, instead of wiping all data from the entire storage media.

Data erasure can occur in minutes when an encryption key is digitally shredded. Otherwise, erasure can take minutes to hours, depending on the capacity and performance level of the storage media.

Data erasure should be used when the data on a storage device is no longer needed for business purposes, retention policy or other compliance, and legal matters, and would create risk for the organization if it were to be accessed by unintended users.

Erasure coding (EC) is a method of data protection in which data is broken into fragments, or sectors, expanded and encoded with redundant data pieces and stored across a set of different locations or storage media. The goal of erasure coding is to enable data that becomes corrupted at some point in the disk storage process to be reconstructed by using information about the data that’s stored elsewhere in the array. Erasure codes are often used instead of traditional RAID because of their ability to reduce the time and overhead required to reconstruct data. Erasure coding can be more CPU-intensive than traditional RAID systems, resulting in increased latency.

The main objective of secure data destruction is to make it impossible to recover data from a data storage device that is no longer in use by an individual or organization. Destroying this data reduces the risks of identity theft, financial theft, reputational harm, or corporate espionage.

Best practices for secure data destruction involve using data erasure software to securely overwrite data on hard drives and SSDs, including the hidden areas and remapped sectors. Erasure is done per government standards such as NIST, DOD, and many more. Erasure software is used before the drives are transported to equipment for physical destruction to eliminate the possibility of data being intercepted during transport. Physical destruction on hard disk drives can be done with a degausser that uses a powerful magnetic field, which erases not only the data but removes the servo tracks, making the media unusable.

The most permanent and final destruction solution involves the use of granulators, also known as shredders. These machines rip, tear, or smash a hard drive or SSD into pieces so small that data cannot be recovered from the media or memory chips.

Data on storage devices no longer in use by an individual or for business purposes by an organization has the chance of being accessed by threat actors who may use the data for identity theft, compromising privacy, financial theft, reputational harm, or corporate espionage. Once the data is destroyed, it is no longer available to those who would choose to use the data in this manner.

Physical data destruction such as degaussing or shredding will make a hard disk drive or SSD inoperable so that none of the data, software, or other programs on the device will function. Erasure software can be used in such a manner that it erases only specific files, leaving Windows or other operating systems intact when an organization desires to repurpose the asset after wiping the data. The comprehensive approach to drive eraser software will remove all data and programs, including the operating system.

Granulators, also known as shredders, are machines that rip, tear or smash a hard drive or SSD into small pieces, making it inoperable and not possible to recover any data. Data that is no longer need by the organization for the business, legal, or retention requirements can be safely and permanently destroyed using a granulator. Organizations can reduce the risk of security breaches and reduce storage costs by disposing of data no longer needed.

Best practices involve using data erasure software to securely overwrite data on hard drives and SSDs, including the hidden areas and remapped sectors. Erasure is done per government standards such as NIST, DOD, and many more. Erasure software is used before the drives are transported to equipment for physical destruction to eliminate the possibility of data being intercepted during transport.

Physical destruction of hard disk drives can be done with a degausser that uses a powerful magnetic field, which erases not only the data but removes the servo tracks, making the media unusable. The most permanent and final destruction solution involves the use of granulators, also known as shredders. These machines rip, tear, or smash a hard drive or SSD into pieces so small that data cannot be recovered from the media or memory chips.

If best practices are followed during data destruction, there is no way to recover data from a shredded hard drive or SSD, especially if data erasure software or a degausser (HDD) was used before shredding. However, if a drive was not erased before shredding and the equipment was not set up to create small enough pieces, a full memory chip might be knocked off an SSD without being destroyed, which can be recovered by a data recovery expert like Ontrack. Improper setup of a shredder/granulator could also lead to an entire disk platter being left intact after a drive is run through shredder set up for a much larger enterprise drive, but such an occurrence would be highly unlikely.

The terms data destruction and data sanitization are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not the same. Data destruction is more of a general term used to describe the process of removing data from computer hard drives, mobile devices, tape, and other types of storage media. While that may sound like what you need—data destruction doesn’t make the data permanently unrecoverable.

When sensitive data has reached its end-of-life, data sanitization must be employed to intentionally and permanently destroy it by overwriting (wiping), degaussing, and shredding the media, which includes verification and certification.

When degaussing a traditional hard drive, the magnetically coated platters that store data are completely erased. Degaussing involves subjecting a hard drive to a magnetic field, which essentially demagnetizes the platters. The drive is rendered completely inoperable because there are no longer tracks and sectors on the platter which are used to organize and locate data.

Degaussing provides permanent removal of data and is recommended as a step in the data sanitization of traditional hard drives, tape, and other magnetic media. After degaussing, devices can be physically destroyed using a special shredder—the process guards against the possibility of any potential for possible data recovery.

We’ve seen videos of do-it-yourself data destruction with nail guns, hammers, and automobiles. And while these methods physically destroy devices, they don’t provide a verifiable, certified method to ensure data is inaccessible and unrecoverable. Destroying a hard drive with a hammer might render it inoperable, but because Ontrack engineers are known for their miraculous data recovery rescues (including a hard drive from the crashed Space Shuttle), anything is possible.