Tell us what you have and we’ll come back within one business day with a quote and available pickup times.
Retired drives are one of the most overlooked breach vectors in business. Customer records, financials, PHI, credentials — all of it survives deletion, formatting, and even a factory reset.
A deleted file isn't a destroyed file. Recyclebyte physically shreds or wipes every drive to NIST 800-88 standards — witnessed at our Sylmar facility if you’d like to watch — and hands you a Certificate of Destruction for every single device.
Deleted files are recoverable with free tools. Formatted drives are recoverable with cheap ones. The only defensible answer is certified destruction: physical shredding or NIST 800-88 sanitization — performed under chain-of-custody and documented per device, so your compliance team can prove it happened.
Different drives call for different destruction. We match the method to the media — and document which was used on every device.
Drives are mechanically shredded into fragments — platters, chips, and boards destroyed beyond any possibility of recovery. The definitive end for HDDs, SSDs, and NVMe.
Software-based sanitization to the federal standard — the right choice when the drive itself is staying in service.
For regulated environments and high-sensitivity media, your team is welcome to witness the process at our Sylmar facility — every drive destroyed in front of you, with a Certificate of Destruction for each one.
From the server room to the junk drawer — if it stores data, we destroy it and document it.
Drives still inside computers or servers? No problem — we pull and destroy media as part of a full ITAD engagement →
Tell us the drive count, media types, and whether you’d like to witness the destruction. Most engagements are quoted within one business day.
Every drive is logged at intake, and travels under documented chain-of-custody from that moment forward.
Shredded or wiped to NIST 800-88 at our Sylmar facility — witnessed if you choose.
You receive Certificates of Destruction and chain-of-custody records — audit-ready documentation within 5 business days.
Healthcare, finance, legal, education, government — if your organization answers to a regulator, our per-device documentation is written for your auditor.
Want the full picture? See our complete data destruction process →
No. Deleting removes the file's directory entry, not the data — and formatting leaves most data recoverable with widely available tools. Even a factory reset can leave remnants on some media. The defensible standard is certified destruction: NIST 800-88 sanitization or physical shredding, documented per device.
It depends on the drive's future. If the hardware is being kept in service or reused, NIST 800-88 wiping preserves the drive while sanitizing the data. If the drive is at end of life — or your policy requires physical destruction — shredding is irreversible. Either way, you receive a certificate documenting exactly what was done.
Yes. For sensitive environments — healthcare, finance, legal, government — your team is welcome to witness destruction at our Sylmar facility. Drop the drives off or have us collect them, watch every one shredded, and a signed record is provided on the spot. We do not perform destruction at customer facilities.
Every drive is logged at intake and receives its own Certificate of Destruction, backed by chain-of-custody records from intake to destruction. Documentation is delivered within 5 business days and satisfies HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, and FACTA audit requirements.
Yes. SSDs, NVMe drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, phones, and tablets require different handling than magnetic drives — they're physically shredded or sanitized with media-appropriate NIST 800-88 methods. We destroy every common format, including LTO tapes, optical discs, and legacy media.
Pricing depends on drive count, media types, and whether you’d like to witness the destruction. Small batches are inexpensive, and volume pricing applies for data-center quantities. Tell us what you have and we'll quote most engagements within one business day.
Schedule certified destruction at our Sylmar facility — and get a certificate for every device. Quoted within one business day.