Groups | Search | Server Info | Login | Register

Groups > comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage > #1731

Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of?

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

Show all headers | View raw

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote:

> I'd have to find someone to open up the drive then. It is easier just to 
> throw the drive into a shredder. Ha, I was pondering in buying a drive 
> shredder. Yikes, those prices.

Yep, $6K, $25K, $35K.  They are very pricey.  Pricing reflects low,
medium, and high volume units.  They have to be well built to survive
shredding thousands of drives; else, no one would buy them if they died
quickly.  They're meant for purchase by professional and commercial
shredding services.  It would take you shredding 300 to 1800 drives to
recoup the cost of a shredder.  If you had that many, you're something
very wrong and very cost ineffective regarding hard drives.  So, you use
someone else's shredder that charges by drive.

It's like company jets.  Very rarely does a company own its own jet.  It
leases a jet along with several other companies leasing the same jet.
The one owning the jet uses all those leases to pay for the jet.  You
probably don't want to buy a bobcat to dig a ditch around your house to
put in French drains.  You rent one.  However, I don't recall seeing
drive shredders at equipment rental shops.  A lot of tool don't take
much expertise, but I suspect a drive shredder would, plus there are
inherent dangers in using one by the untrained.

Have you yet contacted any pro/commercial drive shredders to see what
prices they quote?  I've seen prices mentioned around $20 to $40 per
drive.  If they're not local, you'll have to mail it to them.

If you are averse to shipping the drives to elsewhere, and doing the
destruction using the aforementioned methods, there are drive crushers
(e.g., https://purelev.com/videos.php).  I was thinking of using a vice
with long handles to give you leverage in bending the drives, but this
one using a long handle to leverage an arm into the case to bend it.
Drive crushers aren't super cheap ranging from $400 to $450.  For that
amount of money, I'm sure I can find a really big vice with really long
handles to crush the drive between the jaws, or crush a small pipe into
the middle of the drive.

If this is still too much for you to handle, got any friends that would
enjoy destroying drives?  Give then googles (not just safety glasses), a
sledgehammer, and a construction block to smash your drive.  Or bribe a
neighbor's kid to do it.    

There are hydraulic vises that could crush the drive.  Here's how to
make one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw_uRNQe3cs

Yeah, right.  You can buy them, but prices are high, like over $1K, and
much higher.  You won't find that at your local hardware store.

If you, or a friend, have a heavy-duty vise attached to a heavy
workbench, you could vise the drive, and use a large pipe wrench to bend
the drive.  Most methods would cost you more in tools than what it would
cost to send your drive to a professional drive destruction service.

Are you concerned about a forensic lab reading data off the undamaged
portions of the platters?  Or just anyone happening upon your undamaged
drive who tries to repair it to make it usable to get your data off of
it?  Who is going to repair your smashed drive to get data off of it?
And is your data really that sensitive?

Back to comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) - 2024-01-21 16:17 +0000
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-21 11:47 -0600
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de> - 2024-01-21 19:55 +0100
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2024-01-21 14:28 -0600
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2024-01-21 20:12 -0700
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2024-01-23 15:32 -0600
    Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2024-01-23 17:23 -0600
    Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-23 20:30 -0600
      Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2024-01-24 15:14 -0600
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2024-01-24 16:49 +0000
    Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-24 11:53 -0600
      Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2024-01-24 18:30 +0000
        Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) - 2024-01-24 20:39 +0000
          Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-24 16:11 -0600
            Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2024-01-25 00:05 +0000
              Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-24 18:33 -0600
                Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2024-01-25 16:34 +0000
          Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2024-01-24 23:58 +0000
            Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) - 2024-01-25 01:51 +0000
              Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-01-24 23:35 -0600
  Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? bilsch01 <usenet@writer.com> - 2024-02-04 06:58 -0800
    Re: What do you do with your personal home dead/broken storage drives (e.g., old HDDs) that you want to get rid of? VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2024-02-04 10:41 -0600

csiph-web