Todd Burke, President of Global Business Development at Smith, explores the environmental benefits of refurbishing and reusing hard drives.

It is predicted that by 2025, there will be more than 100 zettabytes ­– or 100,000,000,000,000 gigabytes – of data stored in the cloud. Despite the misleading nature of the name ‘cloud’ storage, this data is stored on physical devices that are regularly updated to keep up with the latest technology.

Storage devices are typically sold with a five-year warranty, and large data centres retire them when the warranty expires. In 2018, 375 million drives were sold, a large proportion of which are now ending their warranty. Most of these drives will be destroyed. In fact, the Circular Drive Initiative (CDI) estimates that 90% of hard drives are shredded rather than being reused. When these drives are destroyed, new drives must be produced to replace them, even for use cases in which the older technology would suffice.

The production of new drives comes at a large environmental cost in terms of materials, energy and carbon emissions – not to mention the financial loss of resale value. Furthermore, the outdated drives add to the escalating issue of electronic waste (e-waste).

Hard drives are generally destroyed after use to prevent confidential data previously stored on the device from being read. However, in terms of physical attributes, a hard disk drive (HDD) presents a viable option for reuse due to its standard form factors and consistent manufacturing designs.

Moreover, with the sanitisation technologies currently available, securely wiping a drive can be just as, if not more, effective than shredding it. To fully reap the environmental, financial, and security benefits of reuse, data centres and other hyperscalers must look at reusing resources and moving towards a circular economy – which can be achieved through the process of managing IT assets and reselling used hard drives. IT asset disposition (ITAD) provides companies with the means to securely erase data, assess the quality, and sell their used drives.

The environmental benefits of reuse

The environmental benefits of remarketing drives are twofold: First, in meeting market demand with a refurbished drive, the energy and materials costs of producing a new drive are saved; second, the e-waste from the old drive is eliminated. According to Open Compute Project’s 2022 whitepaper on data sanitisation for the circular economy, data-bearing devices “contain rare earth metals, the manufacturing of which is a sizeable source of Scope 3 emissions,” also known as value-chain emissions – the emissions for which an organisation is indirectly responsible through its entire value chain.

When analysing the environmental benefits of reuse, the entire lifecycle of the device must be considered. There comes a point of equilibrium where the energy consumption, frequent maintenance, and overall diminished performance of older technology surpass the cost of implementing new production. However, most data centres and hyperscalers replace their technology every few years, when the older technology is still highly usable.

Addressing data security

In the past, it was believed that shredding a hard drive was the only way to ensure that no data could ever be recovered from it. Thus, shredding became the industry-standard disposal process for any drives used to store confidential or customer data. However, this business-as-usual practice is not as secure as

previously believed. As technology has advanced, drives are able to store more data in less space; the latest drives have 500,000 tracks of data per square inch, meaning data could be read off a piece as small as three millimetres, according to the Circular Drive Initiative.

As such, the most current IEEE Standard for Sanitising Storage (IEEE 2883-2022) no longer includes shredding as an option that meets security standards for data recovery. Both clearing and purging, on the other hand, meet standards for secure data removal and carry the added benefit of preserving the devices’ future usability, thereby reducing the environmental, as well as financial, costs of HDDs.

In fact, most companies disposing of their hard drives already practice in-situ or on-site wiping internally, effectively clearing their drives of all data before passing them on to be shredded or otherwise destroyed. Rather than contribute to the world’s growing e-waste problem, these companies could instead remarket their securely wiped drives as part of their strategy to achieve carbon neutrality.

Establishing a remarketing programme

To counterbalance the carbon emissions from new manufacturing, used drives must meet the market demand that would otherwise be fulfilled by purchasing a new drive. But data centres and hyperscalers are used to buying the devices they need, not selling them, and customers for these remarketed drives will expect the same level of quality control and service they’re used to in buying from other channels.

One solution is finding a partner experienced in the open and refurbished markets with the expertise to match the supply of decommissioned drives with demand from their valued customers, provide the quality control and service their customers expect, and handle the scale of product turnover from a hyperscaler. In addition to the environmental benefits of remarketing used devices, remarketing allows companies to retain the value of the HDDs.

Reaping the benefits

As reusing older drives becomes more common, the market for these devices continues to grow. Currently, 25 US states have electronics-recycling laws, and some agencies require products to be certified to EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool). Extended producer responsibility laws, which require manufacturers to be responsible for the entire lifecycle of their product, including recycling and final disposal, are gaining traction as governments around the world recognise the global nature of the e-waste problem.

Remarketing has demonstrated favourable environmental outcomes compared to disposal and alternative recycling methods. Beyond its environmental advantages, remarketing enables companies to preserve value and reduce costs during equipment upgrades. Today’s data-wiping practises are just as secure ­– if not more so – than the industry-standard practice of shredding, and companies can confidently resell their old drives knowing that their and their customers’ confidential data is safe.

Instead of waiting for public pressure to drive changes in their practices, technology companies can proactively move toward achieving their environmental goals, cutting down on their carbon footprints, and simultaneously saving on costs.