Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by FooHentai 3122 days ago
What's your threat model? Data must not be recoverable for at least the next X years, or data must not be recoverable within any future time frame, no exceptions?

For the former, you're absolutely right. For the latter, multiple-pass overwrite provides greater assurance than single pass. Following that up with physical destruction of the platters provides further assurance.

1 comments

Why even bother with overwriting the data if you're just going to physically destroy the platters and/or heat them beyond their curie point anyway?
Timeliness, usually. Destruction is usually a batch job so if you care about risk of data exposure in the time lag between being able to wipe the drive (usually an online, relatively low-hassle activity) and destroying the drive, wiping is worthwhile.

Again, thread modelling is crucial. There may be no point wiping!