Hard Drive destroyer

[Vincent Wolfe]

Hey guys, I have been tasked with an interesting challenge destroy a few hundred hard drives.  Cheapest I have found is $1000 up to $5000.  I think it would be more fun to destroy them myself.  There are lots of methods and opinions on this, but I think it would be neat to build something that is reusable, speedy and cheap.  Would anyone be interested in helping on such a project?

-Vince

[Bryce McIntosh]

Sound like a neat project, I'd be interested in helping on that.

-Bryce

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Vincent Wolfe <v.s....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey guys, I have been tasked with an interesting challenge destroy a few hundred hard drives.  Cheapest I have found is $1000 up to $5000.  I think it would be more fun to destroy them myself.  There are lots of methods and opinions on this, but I think it would be neat to build something that is reusable, speedy and cheap.  Would anyone be interested in helping on such a project?

-Vince

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[DojoMojoMofo]

Sounds fun... not sure what I can do, but I'm happy to pitch ideas... I'm not sure just how much force is required to bend the chassis of one, but after looking at some metal shredders, I think a cheap, efficient, but maybe not easy way would be to build a large "U" shaped anvil, with a hinge in the back going to a large "V" shaped bit that fits into the middle space, with a long handle on the end. You could basically stick one drive at a time in and fold them over on themselves, rendering the platters unsalvageable.

[Bryce McIntosh]

Crushing is probably the way to go, depending on the force required maybe powered by a pneumatic cylinder.

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[Vincent Wolfe]

I kinda want to melt them into molten Aluminum myself, and sell the controller boards on ebay :)

[Bryce McIntosh]

That sounds like a fun way :)

[Vincent Wolfe]

Anyone interested in helping be build a furnace this summer?

[Bryce McIntosh]

I'm up for that

[Luke Evanochko]

I think we already covered the whole "thermite is fun, but probably not safe" thing at the office already. :)

 

Otherwise, a hydraulic press would be the way to go. :)