Hard drive and SSD wiping
Loose drives from old PCs, external backup drives, USB sticks and small NAS boxes, wiped on your premises, verified and recorded by serial number.
The right method for each drive
- Traditional hard drives are overwritten across every sector, then read back to check.
- SATA SSDs are erased with the drive's own secure erase or sanitize command, which reaches memory cells that ordinary overwriting can miss.
- NVMe drives use the NVMe sanitize command, then are checked.
- USB sticks and memory cards are overwritten and verified.
These follow NIST SP 800-88, the widely used guideline for media sanitisation.
What's on the certificate
Drive make, model, capacity and serial number, the method used, the verification result, the date, and who did the work. If a drive came out of a specific machine, we record that too.
Drives that won't wipe
A drive that's failed, clicks, or won't respond is never marked as wiped. It's listed separately on your report, and we arrange physical destruction through a licensed partner so you still have a destruction record.
Small office servers and NAS boxes
We wipe the drives in small office servers and NAS units on site. For anything larger than a few drives, mention it in your booking so we can plan the time.
Price
£8 per loose, external or USB drive. Drives inside a laptop or desktop are included in the £15 machine price. No VAT, travel included. Full pricing.
Where we work
On site across Edinburgh, Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian.
Questions
Is degaussing better than wiping?
Degaussing only works on magnetic hard drives, destroys them in the process, and does nothing to SSDs or USB sticks. A verified overwrite or sanitize lets the drive be reused and gives you a record per drive.
How long does a large hard drive take?
Overwriting a large spinning drive can take several hours, because every sector is written and checked. We run several drives at once and plan longer jobs around your day.
Do you shred drives?
Not ourselves yet. Drives that need physical destruction are handled through a licensed partner, and recorded on your report.
Other services
Got a cupboard of old laptops?
Most offices do. Tell us roughly how many and where you are, and we'll give you a fixed price today.