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W h a t Y o u C a n D oh a t Y o u C a n D o
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Software Third-party Secure
Requirement Solutions Degaussing Shredder Providers Erase
Destroys data beyond No Maybe Maybe Maybe Yes
forensic recovery
Control of the process Yes Maybe No No Yes
Certification and audit trail No No No Yes No
Easy to install and use No No No No No
Reformat for reuse Yes No No No Yes

TABLE 7-3 Pros and Cons of Hard Drive Erasure

Which Method?
Each method presented so far has its pros and its cons. Some are speedy, some are thorough,
and some are inexpensive. But also some are slow, some are unreliable, and some put your
organization in the kind of danger you want to avoid.
You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons depending on your organization’s needs and
what you are prepared to do to protect your data. Table 7-3 compares the methods we’ve
talked about.
Although you run the risk of losing control over your hard drives when you outsource
their decommissioning, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Many companies pride
themselves on their security and discretion.
When you consider a third-party to decommission drives, you need to be confident you
are picking a company that will do what it’s being hired to do in an effective and reliable
manner. After all, what your company does today could be twisted around and used
against you in the future.
You should pick a vendor based on your confidence in that vendor, the vendor’s
technical capabilities, its organizational integrity, and its staying power over the long haul.
Companies such as IBM Global Financing’s Asset Recovery Solutions not only can
sanitize your hard drives, but can also provide remarketing services so you can sell your
decommissioned drives.

CDs and DVDs

The introduction of CDs in 1983 heralded a new standard for music media. Music could
now be released on 120 mm × 1.5 mm plastic and aluminum discs, rather than on 12-inch
record albums. The sound was perfect, and you didn’t have to worry about the CDs
wearing out or getting easily scratched.

NOTE We can debate whether or not the sound from a CD is better than that from a record album,
but that’s a discussion for another place.

It didn’t take long before computer data was stored on CDs—lots of data, in fact. Soon,
it was possible to write to CDs, and they became an attractive medium for removable data