0:32 runtimeFully captioned · music optionalDrag the top bar to seekThe Crunch · :30 series
About this episode
The SSD Trap is episode 1 of The Crunch, CyberCrunch's series of 30-second animated ITAD explainers. Degaussing does nothing to SSDs — flash is electrical, not magnetic. 30 seconds on what actually sanitizes solid-state drives under NIST 800-88. CyberCrunch is an R2v3, NAID AAA, RIOS, and PA DEP certified IT asset disposition and data destruction provider headquartered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, serving all 50 states.
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Here's the myth that fails more disposal programs than any other: running retired SSDs through a degausser. Degaussers destroy data by eliminating magnetic fields — and flash memory doesn't have any. The data on a degaussed SSD is completely intact.
Software overwrites aren't reliable either. SSDs use wear leveling and overprovisioned cells, which means there are regions of storage that an overwrite tool never touches — no matter how many passes it runs.
What actually works, per NIST SP 800-88: firmware sanitize and block-erase commands with verification, cryptographic erase where encryption was enforced, or physical destruction at a particle size appropriate for flash chips.
CYBERCRUNCH · NAID AAA · R2v3 · RIOS · PA DEP
Is your sanitization SOP flash-aware?
If your process predates your SSD fleet, the guide's media-by-media decision table will catch it in five minutes.
