What is Degaussing?
- Definition
- Degaussing uses a powerful magnetic field to erase data on magnetic storage media like hard drives and tapes, rendering them permanently unreadable.
Degaussing is a data destruction method that exposes magnetic storage media to a powerful, alternating magnetic field generated by a degausser. This field disrupts and randomizes the magnetic domains on the storage surface, effectively erasing all data and making it unrecoverable.
Degaussing is effective on magnetic media including traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), magnetic tapes (LTO, DLT), and floppy disks. However, degaussing does NOT work on solid-state drives (SSDs), flash storage, or optical media, because these technologies do not store data magnetically.
After degaussing, a hard drive is permanently unusable — the servo tracks that control the read/write head are also erased, so the drive cannot be reformatted or reused. For this reason, degaussing is considered a "Purge" level sanitization method under NIST 800-88. Organizations that need to sanitize large volumes of magnetic media often use degaussing as a fast, effective alternative to physical shredding.
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