Fwd: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?

The message was intended to go back to the list... (Sorry, Matt!)



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?
Date: 	Thu, 10 Oct 2024 10:19:03 -0600
From: 	Chris Craft <ccraft@netgenius.org>
To: 	Matthew Seaman <matthew@FreeBSD.org>



I was going to mention "Curie point", but this seems to be a complex 
topic. (Forum discussion: 
https://www.overclockers.com/forums/threads/what-is-the-curie-point-of-hdd-magnetic-platters.454159/ 
)

I think you'd be just fine putting it in the oven on the cleaning cycle 
(about 550F).

-C

On 10/10/24 10:13, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 10/10/2024 16:17, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> Someone might have the skills to extract data even after the plates have
>> been shredded and fused into a lump.
>
> The Néel temperature for steel is typically somewhere around 200 -- 
> 500 ºC depending on the alloy.  Steel that is hot enough to "fuse into 
> a lump" will need to be significantly hotter than that -- nearly at 
> the melting point.  All of the magnetic information will have been wiped.
>
> Other ferromagnets useable for magnetic recording are going to behave 
> similarly.
>
>     Cheers,
>
>     Matthew
>