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How do you destroy an SSD?
First, let's focus on some "dont's." These are tried and true methods used to make sure that your data is unrecoverable from spinning hard disk drives. But these don't carry over to the SSD world.
Degaussing – applying a very strong magnet – has been an accepted method for erasing data off of magnetic media like spinning hard drives for decades. But it doesn't work on SSDs. SSDs don't store data magnetically, so applying a strong magnetic field won't do anything.
Spinning hard drives are also susceptible to physical damage, so some folks take a hammer and nail or even a drill to the hard drive and pound holes through the top. That's an almost surefire way to make sure your data won't be read by anyone else. But inside an SSD chassis that looks like a 2.5-inch hard disk drive is actually just a series of memory chips. Drilling holes into the case may not do much, or may only damage a few of the chips. So that's off the table too.
Erasing free space or reformatting a drive by rewriting it zeroes is an effective way to clear data off on a hard drive, but not so much on an SSD. In fact, in a recent update to its Mac Disk Utility, Apple removed the secure erase feature altogether because they say it isn't necessary. So what's the best way to make sure your data is unrecoverable?
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Friday March 17 2017, @07:10AM
Doh. At this price and just for the fun of it:
1. microwave the circuitry
2. use you bread toaster as a reflow oven and desolder the chips
3. take the chips and dissolve the connections and the resin using pirahna solution [wikipedia.org]
4. take the remaining (squeaky clean now) silicon slivers and embed them into termite. You may use a ceramic planting pot - the ones with a hole at the bottom. Set the thermite alight, you know the drill.
5. take the molten metal and forge it into a ring - engrave it with your quote of choice from LoTR (not that there are many such choices, are there?). Wear it tied with a golden chain around your neck. It's a decoy anyway, most of the silicon will be in the slag floating on top of the metal during the thermite reaction, but you now have a good excuse for the days you aren't quite yourself - the ring would consume you, see? - a good excuse for some sick days.
6. take that slag, grind it to a fine dust and store it into a small inconspicuous recipient, like a mint box;
7. finally, take a trip to Mordor; while on your way to Mount Doom, spread the slag dust along the way there, sorta like a breadcrumb track. Cast the ring into the fire - the ensuing volcanic eruption will cover the slag dust you spread along the way.
Rinse clean and repeat for every SSD that you want to dispose of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford