HDD

A magnetic storage device; secure disposal requires wiping or destruction.

A hard disk drive stores data magnetically on spinning platters, so deleting files or quick formatting only removes pointers and leaves recoverable remnants. Secure sanitization therefore requires overwriting, degaussing, or physical destruction to prevent data remanence. This matters for media disposal, asset decommissioning, and regulatory compliance. A key contrast is the solid state drive: degaussing does not work on flash memory, and wear leveling can hide data, so cryptographic erase or destruction is preferred for SSDs.