91–100 of 132 posts
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What's the risk from simply writing over the drives with zeros, and sticking them in the electronics recycling? I don't think anything I or my employer has would be worth the effort to recover.
Right? What are the people in this thread doing that they're worried someone would take the time to employ theoretical, if not entirely hypothetical, recovery methods against a zeroed disk?
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Magnets induce a current when moved relative to a conductor. The magnets you mention aren’t moving.
So what you're saying is that nobody can hot swap drives in a NAS without destroying neighboring drives? I don't buy that either.
In a server, the power supply is on the other end of the chasis. In a laptop, it's a lot closer to the internals.
> I don't buy that either.
Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction
The forward model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL_ryxub-RA
The reverse model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9b0J29OzAU
The big ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conventional_hydroelec... Note: the Three Gorges: 22 GW
For comparison, nuclear power: https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/US-N... Largest U.S. nuclear plant: Palo Verde (Arizona) produces around 4 GW.
For home applications: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/hydro-electric
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Yeah, I hope people realise that everybody has these magnets IN their computer. You might have a NAS in which case you have several of these magnets much closer than 6 inches to the other drives and power supply and nothing happens. Magnets near your or even on the computer do nothing.
Magnets induce a current when moved relative to a conductor. The magnets you mention aren’t moving.
Yes. The magnet is stationary and the spinning drive plate is moving the data, the conductor, very rapidly relative to the magnet. (imho the real issue is the large metal box surrounding the drive plates. It's hard to feel a magnet from inside a metal house.)
Here's my anecdote: In 2006, while sitting at my desk playing a video on the hard disk drive of my Thinkpad T22, I held a single neodymium magnet (harvested from an old hard disk drive) about 6 inches from the left side of the unit (where the ~40GB-ish Travelstar 2.5" PATA disk was located). The video froze, Windows XP blue-screened, and the hard disk drive started emitting a ~10Khz whine. I jerked my hand away from…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what you're saying is that nobody can hot swap drives in a NAS without destroying neighboring drives? I don't buy that either.
No, what he is saying, is that moving magnetic field, induces current , and can mess up the cheap power supply and/or other components, which can then mess up the drives. In a server, the power supply is on the other end of the chasis. In a laptop, it's a lot closer to the internals. > I don't buy that either. Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction The forward model: https://www.youtube.com/w…
A person, moving a magnet near a single wire - not even a coil - is going to induce utterly insignificant amounts of electricity.
You'd need lab equipment to even detect it. It will do absolutely nothing whatsoever to computer electronics.
Here's my anecdote: In 2006, while sitting at my desk playing a video on the hard disk drive of my Thinkpad T22, I held a single neodymium magnet (harvested from an old hard disk drive) about 6 inches from the left side of the unit (where the ~40GB-ish Travelstar 2.5" PATA disk was located). The video froze, Windows XP blue-screened, and the hard disk drive started emitting a ~10Khz whine. I jerked my hand away from…
From 6 inches away? Unless this was a hockey-puck sized magnet I'm calling it a coincidence. > (harvested from an old hard disk drive) Okay, this is making even less sense. "Hard drive magnets", in a drive, are millimeters from the spinning platters. I refuse to believe that the same magnet, moved 6 inches away from the computer caused catastrophic damage.
kees99 posted a possible explanation, where the magnet moves the voice coil, which ends up destroying the drive by writing data in the wrong places.
If you want to get rid of a harddrive with sensitive data I would first suggest that one gets familiar with the thought of not being able to sell it as used. Personally for my drives, I use Boot and Nuke to erase the drive three times, first with zeroes, then with random data, then with zeroes again. After that I disassemble the drive, put a strong magnet over each platter, shredder the drive into almost powder, burn…
1) Fire a twelve gauge shotgun slug into the drive (these would have been external drives).
2) Place a thermite grenade on drive, pull pin.
3) Bug out.
If you want to get rid of a harddrive with sensitive data I would first suggest that one gets familiar with the thought of not being able to sell it as used. Personally for my drives, I use Boot and Nuke to erase the drive three times, first with zeroes, then with random data, then with zeroes again. After that I disassemble the drive, put a strong magnet over each platter, shredder the drive into almost powder, burn…
A friend of mine who was a military secure comms guy back in the 80s told me that if their position was about to be overrun the procedure was: 1) Fire a twelve gauge shotgun slug into the drive (these would have been external drives). 2) Place a thermite grenade on drive, pull pin. 3) Bug out.
Thermite grenades aren't very good at melting a huge chunk of metal either, sure it'll go straight through a machine block but it won't melt the entire machine block.
To destroy all data on a harddrive all parts of the platter must be destroyed and heated to their Curie point.
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A friend of mine who was a military secure comms guy back in the 80s told me that if their position was about to be overrun the procedure was: 1) Fire a twelve gauge shotgun slug into the drive (these would have been external drives). 2) Place a thermite grenade on drive, pull pin. 3) Bug out.
I wouldn't bet on that being a 100% deletion. It'll probably trash most of the data but not all. Thermite grenades aren't very good at melting a huge chunk of metal either, sure it'll go straight through a machine block but it won't melt the entire machine block. To destroy all data on a harddrive all parts of the platter must be destroyed and heated to their Curie point.
There's going to be nothing left of a drive but a puddle of molten metal after it's had a thermite grenade burn on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't bet on that being a 100% deletion. It'll probably trash most of the data but not all. Thermite grenades aren't very good at melting a huge chunk of metal either, sure it'll go straight through a machine block but it won't melt the entire machine block. To destroy all data on a harddrive all parts of the platter must be destroyed and heated to their Curie point.
A hard drive has orders of magnitude less mass than an engine block. There's going to be nothing left of a drive but a puddle of molten metal after it's had a thermite grenade burn on it.
You can put thermite on it once you burned the parts if you want.