Collection: Digital Media Shredders

Paper security levels do not apply to digital media. DIN 66399 uses separate scales — O for optical discs, T for magnetic tape, H for hard drives and E for electronic media such as USB sticks and SSDs — and a machine rated P-5 for paper tells you nothing about how it handles a drive.

The equipment here splits into three types. Granulators, such as the intimus SSD Granulator, reduce media to particles through a screen; the resulting particle size depends on which screen is fitted. Shredders, such as the intimus HDD Gladiator and Omnishred 115 and the Dahle PowerTEC 808 MS and 828 HD, cut drives and mixed media mechanically. Punches, such as the Dahle PowerTEC 818 HD, deform the platter rather than shredding it — fast and effective for spinning disks, but not a granulation process.

Match the machine to the media you actually hold. SSDs and flash media need a much finer result than a mechanical hard drive, because data survives on individual memory chips. If you are working to a government requirement, confirm what your standard specifies for each media type before choosing — see CUI and government document destruction.