this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I won't even give hard drives when recycling a computer, I pull and smash myself. Last set of old drives I cut in half with bolt cutters.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

That's overkill, a couple of passes with dd and it's irrecoverable.

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

A couple of passed with dd takes way longer than bolt cutters and it’s much less satisfying

[–] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I think they meant you could wipe with dd and then they are ~~recyclable~~ reusable.

EDIT: s/recycleable/reusable

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] toddestan@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

More like they become reusable. A lot of places that refurbish donated computers for people who need them are perpetually short on drives since so much of the hardware they get have the drives pulled.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

SSDs are cheap enough, no sense in using a 10 year old mechanical drive to save $30.

[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

SSDs are not cheap anymore, mate. "AI" made sure of that.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Sure, but if we're repurposing a decade old machine, I doubt a 1TB drive is required. Learn to live within 256 or 512, those are not super expensive. And don't need nvme, sata is perfectly acceptable.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah lmao. Wipe one drive at a time with a USB connector. No thanks. I don't have bulk drive operation equipment and then it ties up a computer doing the work.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wait, you don't just hang like 6 of them out of your desktop by their cables and wipe them while you sleep?

[–] 9bananas@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

saw a setup like that at work, until it was determined to be a fire hazard. which it was.

had to short the start pins of the MoBa with a paperclip to start the damn thing.

we called it "the scorpion", cause it would shock you if you touched it wrong, and it kinda looked like a scorpion with the cables hanging out all over the floor...

#tales-from-IT

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Mine, sure. I replaced 15 desktops that day, no fucking way.

Snip

[–] cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think bolt cutters are faster though

[–] bhamlin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

And significantly more power efficient

[–] voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

But more wasteful

[–] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A tool, primarily within Linux, that can overwrite disks. I've never seen it recommended for data deletion, but I guess it makes sense.

It stands for "disk to disk" and is usually used for things like writing ISOs.

However, shred is the usual approach.

[–] Inkstainthebat@pawb.social 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I thought it stood for DiskDump

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

A wise coworker of mine once told me that, when it comes to what Unix commands stand for, you kind of make it up as you go.

In this case, though, looks like we were both wrong.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

They're 500gb mechanical hard drives with financial data on them. Snip and done. No time wasted, not reusing them.

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

This is not truly foolproof. Data can still be recovered from the spinning metal platter since it can theoretically be removed and put into a recovery device, even in a broken state.

Im addition to that, hard drives/ssd's sometimes have small flash memory chips, from which data can sometimes be recovered.

If you want it to actually be unrecoverable then you have to actually ensure all parts thay store data are truly deleted/wiped. Or just use encryption and throw away the key. Or just store them forever in a vault.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Bud, if you put that platter back together after I snipped it, you deserve every bit of data you get off it, 1000%

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not that hard though. There are companies that offer data recovery as a service. If the value of the data on those drives exceeds the cost of those services then it becomes worth it to fish one of the drives out of the dumpster and take it there.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is a very specialized job, your avg joe is not going to do it. Also, in the many years I've been in IT, I've never even seen a video of a platter reconstructed and get data off it.

[–] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Microwave it idk

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I think I've never disposed of one for this reason haha