Digital Shredder

Existing Methods Fall Short

EDT reviewed the market need and current solutions available. It became clear that existing methodologies for sanitizing hard drives all present opportunities for "leakage". As a result, EDT developed a product that met Five Critical Requirements that should be considered when developing a hard drive sanitization plan.

Each plan must provide the following:

  1. Destruction of digital data beyond forensic reconstruction;
  2. Retention of care, custody and control;
  3. Certification and defendable audit trail;
  4. Ease of deployment;
  5. Ability to reformat and reuse the drive.


Comparison of Data Destruction Methods
Critical Requirements EDT Digital Shredder Commercial Software Degaussing Machines Mechanical Destruction Third Party Providers
Destroys data beyond forensic reconstruction Yes No Uncertain [1] Uncertain [4] Uncertain [5]
Ensures absolute care, custody & control of the process Yes Yes Uncertain [2] No No [6]
Provides certification with a defendable audit trail Yes No No [3] No Yes
Easy routine to install & implement Yes No No No No [7]
Reformat the drive for potential reuse Yes Yes No No No


  1. Degaussing machines may not produce a strong enough magnetic field to destroy all of the data.
  2. In most cases, degaussing is a third party process.
  3. Since the degaussing process disables the hard drive, there is no way to test the process to ensure that the data is gone.
  4. Depends on the extent to which the disks have been shredded (NSA and NAID require that the maximum disk particle size is no larger than 1/250th in2.
  5. Depends on the method used by Third Party Provider.
  6. Handing off drives to a Third Party does not absolve legal responsibility.
  7. Third Party Providers usually establish set pick-up schedules. The interim periods create internal storage and security challenges.

To learn more about the current methodologies and the Digital Shredder, download the Digital Shredder White Paper (PDF).