According to a recent Kroll Ontrack survey, 90 percent of people polled use SSDs (Solid State Drives) in their organization and a third of them have experienced a malfunction. These malfunctions resulted in a loss of data 60 percent of the time. Only about 20 percent of the survey respondents note they are able to recover data from these malfunctions. This difficulty in data recovery is due to the way data is stored in the drive. We’ve described that structure in an earlier article. Although SSDs provide faster access and more storage capacity, their reliability is not as high as it could be. Users need to consider that a malfunction in the SSD may result in unrecoverable data.

The Kroll Ontrack report goes on to say that it is critical that businesses take the proper precautions when disposing of these failed devices. This is also true of early generation SSD devices that may be reaching end-of-life. Kroll Ontrack survey results indicate that the most popular disposal method is to physically shred or destroy the drive. While this is an effective approach, the SSD cannot be reused. An alternate secure option for working SSDs is to follow approximately 20 percent of respondents and utilize professional data erasure services to ensure data is completely sanitized.

By choosing erasure you can recover more value for your assets – for example, a laptop with an SSD could be worth 30 percent more than without the drive.

Using certified software for the erasure of SSDs will validate the data sanitization and will meet the NIST 800-88 standard. Minimize your risk and base your decision for a data destruction method on your organization’s risk of threat, compliance requirements, and corporate governance. An ITAD professional can help you determine and implement the right program for your organization. Read our white paper on SSD Erasure for more technical information on how SSDs can be sanitized.