I have ~10 HDDs that I’d like to dispose of. For a while, I tended to buy unwarrantied used disks for my NAS, so these have all failed in some form or another over the years. I can’t just toss them, because they have my (unencrypted) data on them, but I can’t wipe them either since they don’t mount anymore. I want a simple and reliable way to render the contents unrecoverable. A nation state is not part of my threat model, but any kind of data reconstruction that could be bought with civilian money is.
I’ve tried:
- Smashing with tools (largely ineffective)
- Punching holes with a drill press (how many holes are needed to ruin the disk? Also I’ve broken/dulled a few bits doing this)
Some other comments mention shattering platters, but that’s only true for what are typically laptop drives. Most full-size drives are full metal and bend and break into a few large pieces, not really shatter like glass.
Anything that will physically disable them will work. They make bending jigs, but you could also just use a sledgehammer, or prop them up at an angle and drive over them. Drill a few holes, at least one through the head assembly. Or take them to the range and put some bullet holes in them. They definitely won’t spin up after that.