Storage Wars
Back when a disturbingly large number of people liked Internet Explorer and even used it by choice, I was working for a company that manufactured large metal things.
We had been hard at work at a major IT infrastructure upgrade. It had all the usual trappings of such things: gripes from the users that dislike change and would “just like MS-DOS back thankyouverymuch”, gripes about the color of the new icons, gripes about everything.
The IT team had been working hard at this thankless job for a long while, but it was getting to us all.
Part of the project was replacing hundreds of PCs with newer models. This was resulting in enough hard drives to destroy that our previous destruction method was overwhelmed. So, we had to find some other options. We didn’t have the time or space to do something like DBAN (disk wiping) on hundreds of PCs, so we needed something better and fast.
I had recently been promoted to my first managerial position, and I applied my “employee empowerment” lesson and let my tech team brainstorm about how to destroy all the data on those hard drives. I had expected ideas about e-waste recyclers, etc. But no. EVERY idea involved using large, dangerous machinery out in the manufacturing area. Some of them carried a risk of death, and my team was most excited about those.
Employee #1: “Would an hour in [EXTREMELY HOT INDUSTRIAL OVEN] destroy the data?”
Employee #2: “What if we dropped them into [VAT OF DANGEROUS CHEMICAL]?”
Employee #3: “Or better, what if we THREW them into [VAT] and watched [CHEMICAL] splash all over the place?”
Laughter from the team. Grimace from me.
Employee #4: “Maybe we could use some spare wire and build ourselves an eeeeeenormous electromagnet and wipe them that way!”
Employee #5: “How about the acetylene torch?”
Employee #6: “Maybe throw them at [LARGE SPINNING EQUIPMENT] and watch them get chopped to bits?”
Employee #7: “Nah, the bits would fly all over the place.”
Employee #6: “EVEN BETTER! We could SWEEP UP our hard drives when we’re done!”
Employee #8: “How about bats like in Office Space?”
Employee #9: “No, AXES would be better!”
Employee #10: “What about the welders? Surely, they could pulverise them somehow?”
Employee #11: “No, the ROBOTIC welders! We’ll program them to destroy the drives!”
Employee #12: “Or maybe the laser cutters?”
Employee #13: “Could we put them in a big pile, douse them with gas, and just light them all on fire?”
You can see this was going downhill (or uphill, depending on your perspective) fast. Perhaps they were also enjoying making me squirm, particularly when they started with the pseudo-realistic ideas involving chainsaws.
One of the youngest members of the team ran off to go talk to his buddy on the manufacturing floor. This buddy was a jovial, burly, cynical, tattooed, leather-wearing Harley rider who would LOVE to use expensive corporate equipment to smash other expensive corporate equipment to bits. Probably even more than the techs who had been listening to upgrade whines for six months. I liked the guy and the young team member, but I feared that the combination of adventure-seeking tech and danger-seeking equipment operator would get out of hand – and if we weren’t careful, someone might lose theirs.
Eventually, when the techs ran out of steam with the ideas, I laid down three ground rules:
- Nobody gets hurt.
- Data must actually be destroyed.
- Must be fast.
Before too long, the young team member returned with an ENORMOUS smile on his face, carrying two hard drives with large holes in the middle.
Young Team Member: “We tried it on the [ridiculously large] drill press, and it cut through them like putty!”
Employee #1: “What’s this white liquid on them?”
Young Team Member: “Oh, that’s the cooling liquid the drill automatically sprays on the things being drilled to keep from overheating.”
The young team member and the rest of my team excitedly scampered off to the drill press to drill more holes in more drives. I went over and watched a few with, yes, a smile on my face also.
But it all came crashing down when they tried the press brake, which is a machine used to basically fold massive sheets of steel. I’m not talking thin sheets like tin or something. This was thick, hard steel, and it folded it like paper. My techs (or perhaps their equally entertained friends in the shop) had the idea of putting hard drives in the press brake, and bending them beyond recognition.
Unfortunately, it transpired that hard drives in a press brake don’t bend, or, at least they don’t ONLY bend. They also… explode. Bits of hard drive flew out of the machine and went an exciting dangerous distance.
I wasn’t there to witness it, but my team was ecstatic about this effect. Unfortunately Fortunately, it was witnessed by a certain tight-sphinctered manager with a clipboard and a reflective vest; thus ended the festivities.
Some on my team begged to keep doing it, saying:
Employee #1: “It’ll be fine if we just lay the drives down flat.”
Employee #2: “We’ll do it after-hours and even put up a safety sign!”
Me: “Somehow I don’t think a ‘Caution: Exploding Hard Drives’ sign will really solve this one.”
Since everyone involved had actually followed the company safety policy by wearing eye protection and so forth, my team got away with a verbal reprimand; same with the equipment operators. But I had to officially forbid the team from using corporate equipment to pulverize magnetic-based non-volatile storage devices.
However, managers were only there during business hours, but the manufacturing area ran 24/7 with multiple shifts. Some of my team, including that youngest team member, worked an earlyish shift to help out with early-morning IT issues. I couldn’t help but notice that the stack of drives with holes in them was larger each morning when I walked in, and a poorly-concealed grin on the youngest team member’s face as he said “good morning” each day.
I grinned back and kept on walking to my desk.
Better not to ask.
