A simple magnet will not destroy the data eithe
I can’t remember refering to just a “simple” magnet however, when I say strong neodymium magnets, I’m not refering to rattle magnets either. It’s simple to open up a hard disk and remove the patters and destroy the platters by said method does work if done properly. Even a drremel wire brush attachment will do the same, but I guess it’s how far you want to go and who your protecting the data from and whether formatting and binning or formatting and just removing the platters is enough for security of mind. After all the average tip thief woudn’t beable to recover any data once formatted.
A neodymium magnet is simple. Strong ones, too. You need industrial strength to be able to even touch the data, we’re talking a magnet costing in excess of what the computer originally cost, and can take your finger/hand off if not careful.
There’s a reason why companies pay tens of thousands of pounds for a single tiny machine to erase HDDs, as opposed to just waving a magnet over the disc a little. It’s because a simple magnet doesn’t touch data nowadays.
Again, this isn’t the 80s anymore where putting an HDD next to a speaker was enough to scramble it.
Oh, and lastly, if “removing the platters” alone isn’t enough to protect your data against whoever is after it, then you have much bigger problems than whatever is on those platters. If someone is willing to spend tens of thousands of pounds to recover it (if that even covers a platter-reinstallation), or thousands to recover it from a simple format, then you’d probably be better off investing in a better alarm system to stifle all the burglars that inevitably would be coming for it BEFORE you dispose of it.
What a boomer discussion, genuinely.
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