What to Look for in a Hard Drive Destruction Provider

Astonishing Facts

• About 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated daily.
• There are currently over 44 zettabytes of data in the digital universe.
• Only 10% of that data is unique while the remainder is replicated.
• If you were to download all the data from the internet, it would take 181 million years.

Your company’s entire data content may only be a tiny fraction of that, however, you are still responsible for the security of any part that contains Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This includes any data drives that have come to the end of their useful life and are ready for disposal. To ensure that your business remains compliant with privacy laws, and that information is impossible to retrieve, it is vital that you securely destroy all data drives using the hard drive destruction services of a professional shredding company. A hard drive destruction provider should provide you with the following services.

On-Site and Plant-Based Shredding

A company that provides both on-site and plant-based shredding options will allow you to choose the one that works best for your business. On-site hard drive destruction allows you to witness your drives being shredded at your location. If you choose to have them destroyed at a secure off-site plant-based location, be sure to partner with a hard drive destruction provider that uses a strict chain of custody procedure when picking up, transporting and shredding your drives, and that the technicians who handle your drives are screened and well trained in privacy laws.

A Certificate of Destruction

A Certificate of Destruction, which proves that your documents have been securely destroyed in accordance with privacy laws, should be provided at the completion of a paper shredding project. The same thing applies to your hard drives. Written proof that your hard drives have been properly destroyed should be provided by your hard drive destruction provider when destruction is complete. This is to protect you both now, and in the future if any legal inquiry or unexpected audit is initiated.

NAID AAA Certification

A NAID AAA Certified company will provide you with a high level of trust and security over and above uncertified destruction providers. I-SIGMA, the standards-setting body for information destruction, requires members to meet the highest industry standards for disposing of confidential information before issuing NAID AAA Certification.

Ability to Destroy Multiple Mediums

If you store data, you will most likely have a variety of storage drives and electronics that need to be properly destroyed. In addition to your hard drives, find a destruction provider that can also shred storage items that include:

• Mobile devices
• CDs and DVDs
• USB drives
• Microfilm
• X-rays
• Laptops and computers
• Fax machines

Recycling

Hard drive and electronics recycling is vital to keeping harmful metals and toxins out of the earth and air. Choose a destruction provider who is committed to protecting the environment by recycling these metals into reusable products.

To keep your valuable discarded hard drives out of the hands of data thieves, Pacific Shredding provides destruction for all your data storage drives and electronics. We are NAID AAA Certified and provide a Certificate of Destruction after each shredding project. To find out which of our on-site or plant based shredding services will work best for your business, call us at 800-685-9034 or complete the form on this page.