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Businesses need efficient and reliable ways to eliminate data. There are many options, but the following information highlights the most common data destruction methods to know. Continue reading to learn which approaches best suit your businesses’ confidential data destruction requirements.
Physical Destruction
Physical destruction methods, such as shredding, crushing, or incinerating, effectively render digital storage devices unusable. This process ensures that the data on these devices becomes completely unrecoverable for high-security protection of confidential data.
Shredding
Paper shredders turn documents into tiny pieces or strips, preventing unauthorized access to the original information. This is crucial for protecting sensitive data like employee records, tax documents, and business plans.
Many industrial paper shredders can destroy hard drives, CDs, and flash drives too. The machine breaks the devices into fragments, making the data irretrievable. This is vital for securing sensitive digital information.
Degaussing
Degaussing demagnetizes hard drives using a high-powered magnet. It destroys the magnetic field and erases the data on the drive. While effective for magnetic media, it doesn’t work on SSDs or flash storage.
Crushing
A hydraulic press crushes the device, physically damaging the internal components and platters containing the data. Crushing is a straightforward method but requires specialized equipment.
Data Erasure
Unlike physical destruction, data erasure allows for the reuse of the storage device while ensuring that the data previously on it is unrecoverable. Software-based and hardware-based are the two very common data destruction methods to know for digital deletion.
Software-Based Erasure
Employing software-based erasure proves effective in ensuring data is irrecoverable. The process entails the utilization of specialized software that overwrites the storage device with random data. It’s a cost-efficient approach because it eliminates the need to purchase new storage devices.
Hardware-Based Erasure
Hardware-based erasure employs external hardware to perform a complete erasure of the device. It's a quicker alternative to software-based deletion methods. Unlike its counterparts, this approach doesn’t depend on the device's operating system. As a result, it presents a more secure solution.
The safety and security of business data extend beyond its active use. Implementing proper data destruction methods is vital for protecting sensitive information, complying with legal obligations, and maintaining your company's reputation.
If physical destruction is your preferred destruction method, Capital Shredder is ready to help. We provide high-capacity industrial shredders that dismantle cardboard, paper, CDs, and more. Visit our website to see the products and learn which model will excellently protect your business’s safety.