What You Shouldn’t Do With Old Hard Drives
As convenient as it would be for hard drives to endure forever and never need to be replaced, they, like everything else, break down or become old or obsolete.
According to studies, most hard drives begin to lose dependability in their third year, increasing the likelihood of failure. Here are our suggestions for disposing of hard disks, USB drives, backup tapes, and other digital storage devices securely and safely.
Don’t keep old drives.
Storing obsolete hard drives exposes your organization’s data to a data breach. The longer you delay, the more vulnerable your firm is to identity theft.
Instead, remove any drives that are no longer in use, regardless of whether they are broken or old, and even if they no longer operate or have been deleted or reformatted. It is preferable to get rid of them right away rather than wait.
Don’t get rid of old hard drives until they’ve been destroyed.
According to an NAID investigation, 40% of secondhand gadgets traded on the secondary market had personally identifiable information (PII). Your organization is accountable for all stored data and may be held liable for any breaches, including those caused by improperly disposed-of digital media.
Instead, have a trustworthy, skilled hard drive shredding business totally destroy the drive. Data on USB drives, hard drives, backup tapes, CDs, and DVDs can be rendered unreadable and unrecoverable by shredders.
Companies that collect and distribute PPI and Protected Health Information (PHI) must destroy it properly, according to privacy protection standards such as the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA).
Don’t throw away old hard disks.
Disposing of obsolete hard drives harms the environment by adding to landfill debris and polluting the air, soil, and water with dangerous compounds. It also puts your firm at risk of massive data breaches.
Instead, hire a media shredding service that will properly destroy them first. A NAID AAA certified shredding business like Infoshred will ensure that your outdated disks and the data on them are destroyed in accordance with the highest security and environmental standards.
Request an estimate on our website or by calling 860-627-5800 to learn more. Our experts will ask you a few questions to better understand your requirements, after which they will tell you exactly what to expect from start to finish, including the cost.
