The global chip shortage is hitting the one-year mark which is making hard drives harder to find. And, more expensive. If hard drive procurement is becoming a problem, consider a switch from onsite hard drive shredding to onsite hard drive erasure.
When you need complete, absolute data destruction, you’re probably shredding your hard drives. In fact, onsite hard drive shredding is the first and strongest defense against an offsite data breach. And, it’s almost always the lowest-cost option.
The cause of the hard drive shortage
Rising and unpredictable costs and lead times can be attributed to:
- the COVID-19 pandemic (what isn’t?)
- a shift in application demand for semiconductor manufacturing e.g., from automobile to home IT assets (also a COVID-19 side effect)
- new product releases (phones, tablets, consumer devices) by tech giants that get priority from manufacturers
- US-China trade conflicts plus the China-Taiwan relationship
- cryptocurrency
It’s complicated. And, because it’s not a singular reason, hard drive shortages are likely to continue into 2023. So, if ongoing hard drive shortages are causing hard-to-solve problems for your organization, the answer may be a temporary (or even permanent) switch in your data destruction operations.
Is it time to (re)consider hard drive erasure?
Also called hard drive wiping or sanitizing, hard drive erasure is the perfect data destruction solution for lease returns, redeployment, large storage hard drives and high-value equipment. The cost of erasure (almost always higher than shredding) can be offset by eliminating the replacement cost of the hard drive.
Erasure uses DOD/NIST-protocol software to permanently erase work files, personal files, operating systems and installed programs. The result is a hard drive that is wiped clean. And verified to be data-free, secure and 100% compliant. More importantly, the drive is 100% reusable. Goodbye hard drive shortage!
Secure and absolute erasure
The chain of custody paperwork is a bit different between shredding and erasure. With erasure, you’ll also get a report that details the serial numbers of all hard drives successfully erased. Occasionally, a hard drive is unable to be erased so a secondary method of data destruction, typically shredding or degaussing, is recommended to ensure data security and privacy. Unless you’re in an industry that doesn’t legally allow for hard drive erasure instead of shredding, expect the same security protocols and processes as you do for shredding.
Guardian offers many types for data destruction including shredding of SSDs, hard drives, servers and tapes plus erasure and degaussing. Talk to us if you’re looking for secure methods of preserving your hard drives and preserving your data security. Our goal is to give you the options that give you the optimum bottom-line solution that is absolute, secure and compliant.
