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Secure data sanitisation
Certified erasure, to NIST 800-88
Decommissioned hardware is an asset. The data still sitting on it is a liability — and it stays your liability until it’s provably gone. We sanitise every piece of media that comes through our doors and give you the paperwork to prove it.
The standard
NIST SP 800-88 Rev.1, applied properly
NIST 800-88 is the guideline the industry works to, and the one your auditors will recognise. Its central principle is that the sanitisation method must suit the media — what reliably destroys data on a magnetic platter does very little on flash.
A multi-pass overwrite on an SSD is a common and dangerous mistake: wear levelling means the controller may never touch the blocks holding your data. We select the method per device, not per pallet.
- Magnetic HDD — overwrite-based Purge, verified by read-back sampling.
- SATA / SAS SSD — firmware-level sanitise or cryptographic erase, confirmed against the drive’s own status.
- NVMe — NVMe Format with secure erase settings, or crypto erase where the drive is self-encrypting.
- Tape and legacy media — physically destroyed.
- Anything that fails — destroyed physically. No exceptions, no re-tries out the back door.
Three levels
Choose the level your policy requires
Most customers take Purge for resaleable media and Destroy for anything sensitive or faulty. We’ll advise, but it’s your call.
Clear
A logical overwrite of all user-addressable space, protecting against recovery by any standard software or operating-system tooling.
- Suits low-sensitivity data
- Media stays fully reusable
- Verified by read-back sampling
- Certificate issued per drive
Purge Default
Firmware-level sanitise or cryptographic erase, defeating laboratory recovery techniques. This is what we apply as standard.
- Suits confidential and personal data
- Media remains reusable and saleable
- Drive status confirms the result
- Certificate issued per drive
Destroy
Physical destruction — multiple penetrating holes punched through the drive platters with an industrial punch tool. Irreversible, and unarguable.
- Suits regulated and classified data
- Witnessed sessions on request
- Residue recycled under our T11 exemption
- Destruction certificate issued
Chain of custody
Documented from your rack to destruction
A certificate is only worth anything if the drive it names can be traced back to your building. The custody trail is recorded at every handover.
- On site — assets counted and recorded against your list before loading. Sealed cages or lockable totes for loose media.
- In transit — insured, tracked vehicles. No third-party couriers, no overnight stops at unsecured depots.
- Goods in — reconciled against the collection manifest. Any discrepancy is raised with you the same day.
- Processing — media held in a controlled area, CCTV covered, access limited to vetted staff.
- Reporting — certificates and the consolidated audit report issued on completion.
What you receive
Drive make, model and serial number; capacity and interface; method applied; verification result; date, time and operator; your reference and asset tag.
For your auditors
Every unit on one reconciled schedule, cross-referenced to the waste transfer note and your asset register — plus reuse, recycling and CO2e-avoided figures for your ESG reporting. See a sample report.
Portal or bulk download
Certificates are available individually as PDFs, as a single password-protected ZIP, or through the online report portal — whichever suits how you file evidence.
For your audits
Our licences, insurance, method statement and your certificates bundled together — the documentation set auditors typically ask you to produce for a disposal supplier.
Beyond the drives
Switches, firewalls and array controllers hold data too
It’s the step most disposal companies skip entirely. Pull the drives, wipe them, sell the chassis — and quietly hand on a firewall still carrying your VPN keys.
A storage controller holds host mappings, pool and volume definitions, SNMP and SMTP settings, certificates and administrator credentials. A firewall holds its full policy set, pre-shared keys, the local user database and your network topology. None of that lives on the data drives.
- Storage controllers — factory reset via the vendor CLI, then verified by confirming the array reports itself uninitialised with no disk groups, pools or volumes.
- Firewalls and switches — boot device formatted at BIOS level where the console is credential-locked, clearing firmware and the entire configuration partition.
- Fitted drives — removed and certificated separately under their own serial numbers, never bundled into the chassis record.
- Pre- and post-wipe state — both written onto the certificate, along with the checks performed, so the result is auditable rather than asserted.
Your obligations
Where this sits in UK data protection law
UK GDPR & DPA 2018
Personal data must be kept no longer than necessary and protected by appropriate security measures — which includes secure disposal. A drive leaving your building with personal data still readable is a processing failure, and reportable.
Accountability
You must be able to demonstrate compliance, not merely assert it. Per-drive certificates tied to serial numbers are the practical evidence that the disposal actually happened.
Duty of care
Under the Environmental Protection Act you must ensure waste is transferred only to an authorised person. We are a registered upper-tier carrier and issue a transfer note for every load.
This is a plain-English summary for orientation, not legal advice. Your DPO or legal advisers should confirm what your own retention and disposal policies require.
Questions
Data sanitisation FAQ
Can we witness the destruction?
Yes. We schedule witnessed sessions at our Rochdale facility and you’re welcome to send a representative, or join by video link if travelling isn’t practical. Let us know at booking so we can batch your media into a single session.
How quickly are certificates issued?
Certificates follow completion of the sanitisation run, typically within five working days of goods-in for standard volumes. Large clearances are certificated in batches so you’re not waiting for the whole project to finish. If you need a faster turnaround for an audit deadline, tell us and we’ll prioritise.
What if a drive can’t be erased?
It gets physically destroyed. A drive that won’t respond to a sanitise command — because it’s failed, locked, or the firmware refuses — never re-enters the resale stream. You receive a destruction certificate for it instead, so every serial on your original list is accounted for one way or the other.
Do you sanitise media we’re not selling to you?
Yes, sanitisation is available as a standalone service — you keep the hardware, or dispose of it elsewhere, and we handle only the data. It’s priced per drive. Get in touch with rough volumes and media types for a quote.
What about embedded storage — iDRAC, iLO, boot modules?
Covered. BOSS cards, M.2 boot modules, SD and USB internal media, and management controller storage all hold configuration and credentials. They’re identified at audit, sanitised or destroyed alongside the main drives, and appear on your report. It’s a step that’s frequently missed.
Do you subcontract any of this?
No. Sanitisation and destruction are carried out by our own staff at our own facility. Nothing is passed to a third-party processor, which is what keeps the chain of custody short and genuinely auditable.