Hard drive data - Page 2

Used shredder, maybe?

Bear, agreed, storing stuff in "the cloud" is inherently insecure. If someone is really worried about their data security, they should just disconnect themselves from the Internet. You can also use some pretty good encryption for sensitive data. I keep "important" stuff encrypted and local to my machine (which is, however, still connected to the Internet). I use DropBox to store stuff like digital books and research. It's really handy for that because it means I can get at my reading material wherever I am. And I don't care who looks at what I'm reading. There's definitely nothing exciting in that library!

You guy are unreal. The information we exchange on this fourm is amazing. You do you realize how many people in busiess don't know what heck they are doing and or don't care. I care. Stillwater thanks you for every reply in this tread.

Its crazy all the different standards and thoughts on (soft data) wiping hard drives.

Thank you for the links and that csrc link is crazy.

46 pages. I hope my kids don't mind me reading all day.

This will just get worst. As three d storage comes into reality what do we do then

I started electronics 2 months ago as a way to help my business stay live and grow.

Now I realize you need to become a electronics major to even understand what's going on.

Nevermind. How can it be profitable when your scrapping ewaste but also doing due diligence and the right thing, and make $$.

I now understand why many of my close recycling friends don't pay for electronics. If done the right way you can't just buy and sell.

It seems just having a customer sign a waiver isn't enough. What if they found that PC in the trash and its full of child porn. What if u think u destroyed it via a wood splitter or drill press and somone puts enough data blocks together and want to get u!

Now all your disks are in a pile and you can't say who have you the child porn disk or FBI hard drive.

So you say I won't do drives. That's avoiding the issue. Just like CRT.

Look I am doing this for life. Batteries are fun and the base of my business.

What happens in 5 years when were all dealing with pads phones and solid state drives.

Do you destroy every ic chip (volitaile ones)

When will one rule be the end all be all. Too many governing bodies that say and say that.

Guys and gals we are pioneers in a new world of electronics recycling.
Do you care about your future or just your $$.

I realize. Now it's the same. Your future and $$ are linked.

I think I'll got the drill press route. Too bad I sold a 6k clausing press for 200 dollars this fall.

Damit aaron!!!

I thank you all for this thread. Sorry I can't type or speak eloquently. I'm in a phone and just don't know how.

Start calling me the sponge. I will absorb any and all information here.

I'll need more 32 and 64 gb sticks.

How you destroying solid state memory in smart phones or tabs.

You all see that's where it's going. Long term. Besides servers and large schools give etc.

Crazyness. But awesome posts everyone.
Aaron.

Just get that awesome shredder thing in the video further up in this thread. I was totally hypnotized by that.

What are those blades made out of, and how on earth do you keep them sharp?? Is that an expensive machine to maintain?

I can't afford a shedder. Plus electronics is a side business.

I need electronics like a body needs blood. So I don't get enough hard drives YET to buy a shredder.

I love the technical geek part of ewaste. I'm not stopping. I can't wait two years from now. I'm scalling this business like crazy and ASAP. Just must be done right. I won't be a computer repair company. I want to make millions.
I see you need to think like one or at least have the knowledge of these computer geeks.

I'm the sponge. Soon I'll be the geek. Then I'm recycling the whole world.
Hahaha


Serious folks. Watch out. Every battery and computer will have my finger prints on them Before they go to the big place in the sky.

Aaron. Stillwater.

How much better is the scrap room. I'm a free member. I just have no time. Thr free part if the four. Rocks.

Yes baby lets get rich help and do the right Thing.
Me getting stronger every day helps me help others. Its so cool.
Aaron. I won't stop paying for items my base needs $$.

You guys ever sit back and think how much $$ we put back I to the community around our businesses. Its crazy. What other business has such direct impact on people's wallets. In a good way.

You tell me one where we all win. The planet you and your customer all win. I'm getting to thr point where it's almost too good to be true......until I pay bills, but thr our landlords and insurance companies benifits.

I'm going to sound nuts but recycling from a want to help point if view can save our world.

Yes these is data distruction and CRT monitor problem and that province in china that we all messed up.

I'm calling a code green.
To me that means win win for all. Just think of others.
You will notice my attitude is always upbeat. I like everyone have bad days. I just pray and stay off the internet when that happens.
Where you find aaron when things need to fixed or plan needs to made. In the woods, hiking ,biking, fishing and I'll have my kids or be alone. It don't matter. A good walk even in thr city or woods will help you realize. This is our temporary body and our sprit is contained inside, when we fix this place were rewarded in our .......
I'll stop there. I was not a believed before so I won't push any agenda.

But you gota remember how many people we help with out even trying.

Makes Mondays works seem more fun and exciting don't it.

Aaron. The sponge from Stillwater.

I wonder if it would be faster and cheaper just to set up a bench PC like spinroch. If you're not processing the hard drives of government agencies or corporations with special sanitization requirements, you should be able to satisfy your customers' data privacy concerns just by doing an overwrite (level #2, "clearing," in the NIST definitions). Also, more and more of the hard drives you process are going to have the Secure Erase function -- any ATA/SATA drive manufactured since 2001 and at least 15 GB in size has Secure Erase. With those, you don't even need to do an overwrite. NIST ranks Secure Erase as equivalent to degaussing, so that satisfies an even higher level of sanitization (#3, "purging") without any extra work. (If you want to know more about how Secure Erase works, here's a link. And this one isn't a thousand pages long! Kill your data dead with these tips and tools | PCWorld)

Since you're in the technology recycling business, the cost of materials to set up even several PCs to wipe hard drives would be essentially nothing. The question is how does the amount of labor (time) it takes to swap drives in/out and erase/overwrite them compare with the amount of time it takes to destroy the data using some other method. I'm sure spinroch could answer that, since he has experience with both.

My guess is that it might be a bit slower initially, because you would have a little learning curve as you got used to installing/removing HDDs and overwriting or Secure Erasing them, but it would pretty quickly become more efficient than having to deface or cut all the disks. I might be wrong about that, though. The drives would also be reusable, so you would have the option of reselling them if their market value was higher than their scrap value. Of course, some clients, such as government agencies and certain businesses, won't allow you to resell drives removed from their machines, but they won't be your only customers.

... Hope I don't come across as a "know it all", cause I certainly have a half empty skull!

Nah, spinroch, you come across as a rocket surgeon.

Originally Posted by FLimits

Just get that awesome shredder thing in the video further up in this thread. I was totally hypnotized by that.

What are those blades made out of, and how on earth do you keep them sharp?? Is that an expensive machine to maintain?

SSI quoted me $550k for one of there machines. I think it's like a boat. If you have to ask how much... you can't afford it. You can have them custom make blades to cut your product and buy new ones when they get dull. I didn't get that far. The sticker shock got me

$550K for a shredder?!?

Or I could get one of these:


Or one of these:


Decisions, decisions...

I am sure you can have the blades resharpened. The M140HD shredder, the one I was quoted, and the one they use in a few videos weighs in at 40,000 lbs. The shafts would need to be taken out to have them sharpened off site. What I was trying to say is not many people have cranes to pull a set of cutters, the power for 400hp (twin 200's) or the budget operate a "mega shredder". I mean the hydraulic reservoir is 600 gallons. I laughed at the thought of lugging 121 5 gallon buckets just to fill the tank. And yes they do make smaller and less expensive machines but it isn't not going to be 5 or 10k

I'm just thinking of the volume and the margins you'd need to cover the cost of capital plus operating and maintenance for a piece of equipment like that. I wonder what the average service life of one of these machines is. To a large extent, of course, that would depend on how it was being used.

I just looked at SSI's web site, and they even have systems priced in the millions. (Their cheapest system is around $30,000. That must be like a coffee grinder compared to these other monsters.)

You're all too late. Anyone who wants the information off those drives has already got it ; )

Originally Posted by Bear

You're all too late. Anyone who wants the information off those drives has already got it ; )

Bear is correct! If someone is reallyyyyyyyyyyy tryin to get something on someone, they got it.

We need to do our due diligence and then let it go. that's jus my 2. well actually, 8. the voices in my head put a few in on it ;-)

Just found a thread from a few months ago showing a great monster rig for erasing hard drives: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/tools...m-working.html