How to (Really) Erase a Hard Drive Completely
Updated: Jun 19, 2021
There are many reasons why organizations need to wipe hard drives. Whether you want to repurpose the drives, resell them or completely remove the data before you physically destroy them, complete data removal is key to achieving data sanitization.
But simply deleting the data from the hard drive is simply not enough! This is because it doesn’t completely remove that data; it only “hides” the data on a storage device. And until the data has been overwritten, it remains easily recoverable!
So, if deleting isn’t how you completely remove data, you should wipe that data instead, right?
Wrong.
Data wiping doesn’t achieve true data sanitization because it doesn’t include verification that the data is gone. To truly achieve data sanitization of drives, you must invest in software-based data erasure, physical destruction and/or verified cryptographic erasure.
So what’s the difference between Data Wiping and Data Erasure?
It’s true – the term data wiping is often used interchangeably with data erasure. However, there are core differences.
Data wiping is the software-based method of overwriting data without verification that the software was successful in overwriting to all sectors of the storage device, and does not produce a certified report.
Unlike data erasure, data wiping does not follow any erasure standards and does not offer any proof that the data is unrecoverable. Therefore, this method is not considered as an approved method for data sanitization.
On the other hand, data erasure is the software-based method of securely overwriting data from any data storage device using zeros and ones onto all sectors of the device.
By overwriting the data on the storage device, verifying the data has been erased and certifying that erasure with an erasure report, the data is rendered unrecoverable and achieves data sanitization.
So how do you (Really) Erase a Hard Drive:
Back up anything you want to keep. When the hard drive erasure is complete, there will be no way to get anything on the drive back
Choose a specific data erasure standard, based on your industry and organization’s unique needs
Perform the data erasure according to the software’s instructions
The data erasure software will verify the overwriting methodology has been successful and removed data across the entire device
The data erasure software will produce a tamper-proof certificate containing information that the erasure has been successful and written to all sectors of the device, along with data about the device and standard used
And after following these steps, you can finally feel confident that the data is gone for good, and you’ve successfully achieved complete data sanitization!
Want to invest in a data erasure software to dispose your hard drives securely? Click the green button to contact us today!
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