How to delete old hard drives

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

Locally I just use a large HDD with bitlocker encryption to centralise all the data...the drive backs up automatically to the cloud. The data being backed up is encrypted locally so I'm the only one with the decryption key.

The drives I'm destroying predate bitlocker encryption so a lot of the data was stored simply as raw files and could be accessed by anyone. Thats basically how things were back in the old days.

My thinking is I'm far more likely to lose data by having the drive either damaged or destroyed!

 

[Bornfree]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

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I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.

Write everything in a large diary and put it under your mattress with all the bundles of £50 notes.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Write everything in a large diary and put it under your mattress with all the bundles of £50 notes.

Don't forget to wrap it in tin foil first to prevent it being read remotely

 

[Jack_K]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

---------

I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.

Businesses and government departments use LTO tapes.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I'll stick a hammer thro the circuit boards....but the question is what's the easiest way to "manually delete" the spinny things!

Just use a bigger hammer

Jack

 

[Beeezer]

Just use a bigger hammer

Jack

A Jack hammer….

 

[gaz1]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

---------

I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.

2 systems with raid built and a further back up makes sure

raid will still fail though but you can set it for 2 hard drives to fail before data is compromised

systems nowadays can inform you that one of the hard drives has failed

dvds usb and flash drives is a big no for storage of data on them

while you can use nas homeserver but it still runs the risk of being compromised

 

[gaz1]

for me 20tb on 3 sets of hard drives and one being off site these arnt powered up just loaded and not used until needed

the slow 4tb hard drives wind me up deing at 5400 rpms i prefer the faster 7200 rpms but theyve gone green the only faster ones nowadays are the nvmes but there costley but slowly coming down in price

 

[DAPPH]

I'm going to be booking them on the next manned moon mission...they'll then be buried in a large crater on the far side of the moon

The Chinese will be almost instantly mining them from their darkside space station

 

[MetalMonkey]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

---------

I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.

Depends on what data you want to back up, your budget, your infrastructure, and what you assess the risk to be.

For individuals, most will probably use a portable drive of some description. I'm not a huge fan as, in a previous life, I've spent far too many hours recovering them when (not if) the controller dies.
USB thumbdrives should never be used for anything other than transferring data - they corrupt for fun and you are far less likely to recover the data from them easily.
DVD/CDs have a finite life, especially the cheap ones now, and thesedays aren't much use unless you only have a very small amount of data to store.

Personally I favour a small network attached storage box with some form of redundant disk array, but an "offline" copy of any critical data is always a good idea just in case.
A hot swappable hard drive caddy can work well.

For SME, Enterprise etc, entirely different ballgame.

 

[MetalMonkey]

Businesses and government departments use LTO tapes.

Years ago tape was pretty much the only thing for backup and long term storage, and may be seeing a bit of a revival recently actually - but disk is still the current hot favourite for enterprise backup and storage.
It is fast, cheap, plentiful and convenient and swept away a lot of tape when virtualisation took hold. Veeam didn't even support tape to start with, although they have since bowed to pressure and added that in.

Designed well, there was an argument that all you really needed to backup was snapshot data, or the delta for the changes as your live system would be completely redundant with zero downtime on failover.
I recall a lot of companies ripping out all their tape and moving over to disk and cloud only.

However I always liked the traditional GFS style backup and would try and retain the old autochangers and find a way to work them in as part of a tiered backup and archive strategy.
With the subsequent rise in ransomware, perhaps that was somewhat fortuitous or just foresight.

Everybody says tape is dead, but somehow it still hangs on.

 

[MysterG]

Punched cards .... in a fire proof safe

 

[Smallfry]

I got an old pc from a large solicitors office a few years back, they had deleted the drive, well someone had hit format I presume cause I had all the data back in 5 mins

Did you learn anything interesting ?

 

[Robotstar5]

I've started looking for cloud storage as BT are ending their cloud storage that I've had as part of my package for the last few years.
Any suggestions for about 200gb?, mainly images with a few videos and quite a few documents, I don't mind paying for the peace of mind.

 

[Kerelise]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

---------

I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.

Recordable DVDs / CDs fail - I have many over 10 years old that are unreadable now to varying degrees - the various software that tries eventually kills the DVD / CD drive. SSDs if not used after 3 years apparently start losing the data. Either keep stuff on spinning platter drives and copy it over to new one every couple of years just to refresh that magnetic bits.

M-Disks are touted as being great - but haven't tried them yet....

 

[jimbo84]

I've started looking for cloud storage as BT are ending their cloud storage that I've had as part of my package for the last few years.
Any suggestions for about 200gb?, mainly images with a few videos and quite a few documents, I don't mind paying for the peace of mind.

We had an outlook account, 100GB for £1.99 a month. The email ended up on some data breach and having around 20 hacking attempts a day, they never got in but every time you tried to log in I had to reset the password so changed to google drive, something like £15 a year for 100GB. Not as much storage as you require but they do bigger packages, both were/are fine for easy access cloud storage and the outlook email issue I doubt originated from outlook, more likely some other website the email was associated with.

 

[Spuddevans]

I've started looking for cloud storage as BT are ending their cloud storage that I've had as part of my package for the last few years.
Any suggestions for about 200gb?, mainly images with a few videos and quite a few documents, I don't mind paying for the peace of mind.

I'd look into whatever mobile phone system you may be using, eg Apple's Icloud or Google's GoogleDrive, they'll link in to your phone as well. Think Icloud is £2.99 per month for 200Gb and Google drive is £1.59 for 100Gb (both have several levels of storage/prices)

 

[gaz1]

I've started looking for cloud storage as BT are ending their cloud storage that I've had as part of my package for the last few years.
Any suggestions for about 200gb?, mainly images with a few videos and quite a few documents, I don't mind paying for the peace of mind.

forget cloud if you use a pc and if not its cheap enough to buy a pc and keep it offline

so use ssd storage its way cheaper

remember i bought 3 of these 1 im hammering and its 4+ years old now, one i transfer with it the other is within another pc

512GB Lexar NS100 2.5" SATA III SSD - LNS100-512RB

Cheap SSD with a capacity of 512GB With Super Fast performance due to it's SATA III interface and super Rapid 550Mbps read speed ., Mfg Code: LNS100-512RB

www.cclonline.com

in your case it would one installed within the pc comes with a good warranty

the second one is a back up and is unplugged at back up there remove from the system the third you can store elsewhere

there fast enough so when backups are needed just plug in and send the 200gb or further pics and videos to the other drive in a matter of 20 mins total send time 200gb will take double the time

 

[Robotstar5]

forget cloud if you use a pc and if not its cheap enough to buy a pc and keep it offline

so use ssd storage its way cheaper

I want an off-site backup, anything kept at home is vulnerable to fire, theft etc.

 

[cheb]

I want an off-site backup, anything kept at home is vulnerable to fire, theft etc.

Make your own copy, update it as needed and keep it at a mate's house or work. Encrypt the disk as necessary.