The threat of identity theft means that destruction of old media, such as hard drives, CDs, and backup tapes is a fact of life. You’re responsible for the proper disposal of sensitive data. Overwriting and degaussing hard drives, tapes and other magnetic media is not enough. This is practiced by many companies before they are ready to dispose of hard drives, tapes and other magnetic media. This practice is not fool-proof as it is prone to human or software error and someone with basic computer technical skills can recover deleted data. To be sure that all data are irrecoverable, physical destruction of the medium is the only viable choice. Smashing a drive with a sledgehammer or putting it in a hydraulic press is a lot of fun — until you’ve done it a dozen times. Advantage offers an alternative – you simply ship your media to us, or we can pick it up, and we’ll put it through an industrial shredder. When it comes out the other side, it will be a pile of tiny pieces to be recycled.

Most electronics and computer recyclers claim to overwrite hard drives by using software that meets the Department of Defense standard (US DoD 5220.22-M). The standard is to format and overwrite the memory with garbage data. This makes it difficult to recover original data. Note the word “difficult”. It is not impossible to recover the data and your important data may still end up in the wrong hands. This practice is also prone to human and/or software errors and someone with advanced computer technical skills can recover previous data.
Shredding of hard drives, tapes, and other magnetic media is by far the safest means of disposal and the only method that guarantees that your data cannot be recovered. At Advantage E-Cycling, we make this process very simple for you.

We offer an on-site hard drive destruction service. Our highly effective patent-protected machinery will significantly damage the hard drive platter rendering the data unrecoverable. The machine bends, crushes and pierces the platter so that it doesn’t spin hence the data is unrecoverable by commercial techniques. This can be done at our customer’s offices as they watch.

Serial numbers can be captured and recorded as required by the customer to provide a complete audit trail. Advantage E-Cycling will provide a signed and dated Certificate of Destruction. Our Certificates of Destruction are recognized by the National Association for Information Destruction. Residual materials will be removed and recycled in full compliance with all local, state and federal regulations.
We operate a 6600 pound, 4 shaft shredder with 50 hp. The machine can shred over 1000 lbs. of metal and plastic per hour. The cutting chamber is 29″ x 27″ allowing us to securely shred any type of electronics.

Our shredder has three screen sizes (15 mm, 20 mm and 40 mm) to control the particle output size. The shredding process not only cuts and shreds the metal but by forcing it through the cutters and screens, it also compresses and compacts the media rendering it completely unrecoverable. Our shredding process has been verified by an independent third party using classified recovery methods. No data was recoverable from hard drives shredded with our 20 mm screen. A full copy of that report is available upon request. All residual particles are recycled in full compliance with all local, state and federal regulations.