Who this is for
Most retired IT reaches us as whole machines. The drives inside are wiped to NIST 800-88 Purge and the hardware goes on to a second life. This page is for the other situations: a box of loose hard drives pulled from old servers or PCs, drives that have failed, or an internal policy that says certain media must be physically destroyed.
Wipe or destroy? An honest answer
A drive that has been sanitised to NIST 800-88 Purge and verified is, in practice, as safe as a destroyed one, and it can be used again. That is better for the environment and keeps value in your equipment, so we wipe wherever a drive is healthy and your policy allows it.
Physical destruction is the right choice when:
- The drive has failed or cannot be verified as wiped. A dead controller or failing sectors mean software cannot prove the job is done.
- A policy or contract requires it. Some organisations do not allow data-bearing media to be reused under any circumstances.
- The drive is too old or too small to reuse, so nothing is lost by destroying it.
If you are not sure which applies, ask before you book. We would rather tell you a wipe is enough than sell you destruction you do not need.
How each type of drive is destroyed
| Mechanical hard drives (HDD) | Degaussed. A powerful magnetic field scrambles the magnetic patterns on the platters that hold the data, permanently. |
|---|---|
| Solid state drives (SSD, including M.2 and NVMe) | Shredded. Flash chips do not store data magnetically, so a degausser would leave them readable. Physical destruction is the only safe option. |
At our facility or at your premises
At our facility. We collect drives in our own unmarked, GPS-tracked vans with documented chain of custody and destroy them at our licensed site in Sowerby Bridge. If you only have a handful, you can drop them off yourself. Ring ahead so someone is ready to receive them.
At your premises. If drives must not leave your building, we bring the equipment to you and destroy them on site while you watch. We need a standard 240V socket and somewhere to work. On-site work needs scheduling, and a fee may be charged to cover costs. We confirm it before booking, never after.
What you get afterwards
Every job comes with chain-of-custody documentation and a certificate of destruction. If you need each drive listed by serial number, usually because an auditor will reconcile it against your asset register, that is our Premium service, where a fee may be charged to cover costs.
Getting a box of drives ready
- Count the drives and note roughly how many are HDDs and how many are SSDs. It helps us plan the job.
- If you need serial-level records, say so when you book rather than afterwards.
- Keep the drives in a sealed, labelled box until collection, and note who sealed it and when. That is the start of your own chain of custody.
For the standards and tools we use to wipe drives, see secure data destruction.
Talk to someone who does this every day
Tell us roughly what you have and we will give you a straight answer on cost, timing and paperwork.
Book a Collection →