HSM Pure 320 1/4 inch Strip Cut Shredder - HSM2331

The HSM Pure 320 in 5.8 mm strip cut is the first Pure model that stops being a desk accessory and becomes a piece of office equipment: a 556 mm floor-standing cabinet with a 360 W motor, a pull-out 25 litre bin and a 17 to 19 sheet capacity. It is also the only strip-cut machine in the compact Pure range rated for optical media, carrying an O-2 class alongside its P-2 paper rating.

The strip is 5.8 mm - just under a quarter of an inch. That is a bulk-destruction cut, not a confidential one, and the O-2 rating is what most buyers are actually here for: a single machine that clears paper fast and destroys the occasional CD or DVD without needing a second device. If security rather than speed is the requirement, the cross-cut Pure 320 exists and is dealt with below.

Key Features

• 17 to 19 sheets a pass. Nearly half a ream in ten passes, which is a different class of work from the Pure 220's 12 to 14.
• Rated for CDs and DVDs (O-2). The cross-cut Pure 320 is not - it carries no optical class at all. If disc destruction matters, this is the Pure 320 to buy.
• 360 W motor. More than double the Pure 220's, and the reason the sheet capacity jumps rather than creeps.
• 230 mm throat. Letter and legal feed unfolded; A4 has room to spare.
• Pull-out 25 litre container. No lifting a housing off - the bin slides out of the cabinet, which is the right design once you are emptying it regularly.
• Automatic start/stop with stand-by. Feed-activated running, low idle draw.
• Safety element and overload-protected feed. Immediate stop on contact; the feed backs off rather than stalling on an over-thick handful.
• Quiet at approximately 55 dB(A) idle. Slightly quieter than the smaller Pure models despite the larger motor.

Specifications

Sheet capacity is HSM's own figure at 80 g/m². Standard US 20 lb copier paper is about 75 g/m², slightly lighter, so the published figure is a conservative one for a typical American office. Any shredder quoted against lighter paper will look better on paper than it performs.

What's in the Box

The Pure 320 with its 25 litre pull-out container and HSM's operating instructions. Shredder bags are not included. Because the bin is a drawer rather than a tipping tub, many sites do choose to line it - ask us for the correct 25 litre HSM liner rather than guessing at a generic size.

Who Should Buy This - and Who Should Not

This is a good fit for a small office of two to five people whose shredding is mostly non-sensitive but voluminous - a retail back office, a workshop, a studio, a school department - and who occasionally need to destroy a disc. It is also a sensible bulk machine to sit next to a high-security shredder so the expensive one is not used on catalogues.

Do not buy it for confidential records. A 5.8 mm strip is a wide strip: whole sentences survive. If the paper carries names, account numbers or medical detail, buy the HSM Pure 320 cross-cut instead - the same cabinet and the same bin, cutting a 3.9 x 30 mm P-4 particle - accepting that capacity drops to 8 to 9 sheets and that it loses the optical-media rating. If you want both P-4 and disc destruction in one machine, step up to the HSM Pure 420 cross-cut, which carries O-3 as well as P-4. And if tabloid or A3 sheets are part of the workload, only the Pure 530 has a throat wide enough at 300 mm.