Guide · Updated October 31, 2026 · By the OfficeRated team
Hard Drive Shredder vs Degausser: Which Does What
A degausser and a hard drive shredder solve different problems. One erases magnetic media with a strong field; the other physically destroys the device. Which you need depends on the media, especially whether it is a spinning hard drive or flash storage.
How each method works
- Degausser: applies a strong magnetic field to scramble the data on magnetic media such as hard disk drives and tape. NIST SP 800-88 treats degaussing as a purge method for magnetic media and notes it does not work on flash-based storage such as SSDs.[1]
- Crusher or punch: bends or pierces the drive so it can't spin up. It is fast, but it doesn't reduce the platters to small pieces.
- Shredder or disintegrator: cuts the device into pieces. The smaller the particle size, the harder recovery is, which matters for SSDs because data sits on small chips.
What government guidance requires
The NSA/CSS keeps separate Evaluated Products Lists for magnetic degaussers, hard disk drive destruction devices, solid state disintegrators and optical media devices; the current revisions are dated October 2026.[2] If your contract requires NSA/CSS-listed equipment, check the exact model and the media type against the right list. NIST's current guidance is SP 800-88 Rev. 2.[3]
Which to choose
- Only spinning hard drives and tape, and you want drives unreadable on site: a degausser, often followed by a crusher so the drive is visibly destroyed.
- SSDs, phones or USB sticks: degaussing won't work.[1] You need a shredder or disintegrator rated for solid-state media.
- Mixed media: a shredder rated for both, or a degausser plus an SSD-capable destroyer.
What's in our catalog
We list 80 media destruction machines: 14 degaussers, 21 crushers or punches, and 44 shredders or disintegrators.
Degaussers
- Datastroyer 105 HD Degausser
- Intimus 10000 G
- Phiston MediaFlux Degausser
- Proton 1100 Degaussing Wand
- Datastroyer 105 HD Drawer Degausser
- Intimus 15000 G
- See all 14 matching models in the hard drive & media destruction catalog →
Shredders and disintegrators for SSDs
- BOW Industries MHDD-N
- Datastroyer 108 SSD Shredder
- Formax FD 87HDS
- Intimus FlashEx
- Phiston MediaDice All Media Disintegrator (A2)
- Proton 104 Multimedia Shredder
- See all 28 matching models in the hard drive & media destruction catalog →
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Sources
- [1] NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1, Guidelines for Media Sanitization
- [2] NSA/CSS Evaluated Products Lists (EPLs), current revisions dated October 2026
- [3] NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2, Guidelines for Media Sanitization
Catalog figures on this page are counted live from the sourced spec sheets in our hard drive & media destruction catalog (80 models), so they match the category page. We don't test machines or publish prices, and model lists here take each maker in turn, alphabetically within a maker; they are filters, not rankings.