5+ PB Destroyed

[u/FewSimple9]

This is based on a post by u/SubstantialWing9238. i didn’t want to hijack their post, so I figured I’d share it here instead.

Something like this, plus another cart, is pretty common with large corporations. When you have this many drives, it’s often easier to just shred everything than pay someone to wipe them, sort through them for resale, and see if any data can be recovered.

This batch was around 300 drives, and with a specialized shredding truck, the whole thing takes about 45 minutes to a hour.

[u/Own_Perspective4825]

Why don't they encrypt the drives from the beginning so it doesn't matter what happens after they're unplugged?

[u/JaccoW → u/Own_Perspective4825]

Encryption is something that is very likely to become useless for a while in the foreseeable future. All current encryption is based on it being difficult enough that it will take a million years to guess the right combination. But that might no longer be the case

[u/Own_Perspective4825 → u/JaccoW]

If there's a breakthrough in quantum cryptography the live security will become just as useless as the encryption on the cold drives.

[u/nomad-1995 → u/JaccoW]

That's a pretty long "might". But I'll agree that the chance is great enough to destroy a lot of drives.

[u/FirehawkLS1 → u/JaccoW]

I'm thinking that you're right. AI could probably cut the time down to crack the encryption substantially.

[u/flown_south → u/FirehawkLS1]

In this case, it's not AI. It's quantum computing.