How To Choose A Degausser

Introduction: A Guide To Choose The Right Degausser

There are a few different options to look at when you’re choosing a degausser for your organization.

This article will go over the security level that you may need, portability, and budget options.

Degausser Security Levels

If you are working for the federal government, then there’s a good chance that you may need to purchase a degausser with the consideration that you need to maintain compliance with top-secret security procedures.

In this case, you would need to purchase an NSA-listed degausser .

NSA-listed degaussers are special in the way that they have a very strong gauss charge that has more than enough strength to wipe away magnetically stored data on a hard drive.

As a general rule with degaussers, the higher the oersted-level of the hard drive, the more degausser power you will need.

Typically, drives with a large amount of data or larger enterprise drives will have a higher oersted level and need a stronger degauss charge to be capable of erasing the data on the hard drive.

If you are a commercial entity, then you won’t have to worry about buying an NSA-listed degausser for compliance reasons.

Whitaker Brothers offers both degaussers for commercial use and NSA-listed degaussers.

What Are The Most Portable Degaussers?

Most hard drive degaussers are about the size of a toaster oven, so they are already quite portable as far as data destruction machinery goes.

There are a few degaussers that stand out in this category though.

The first is the degausser wand .

Degausser wands are less than half a foot in length and don’t require electricity to run.

There is one hang-up with degausser wands though.

With degausser wands, you must remove the casing off of the hard drive and you have to remove the hard drive platters to physically wipe the data off of the hard drives with the magnetic degaussing wand.

If this process doesn’t sound like it’s for you but you still need a portable degausser, then Whitaker Brothers sells one that’s about the size of a toaster here .

Budget-Friendly Degaussing Options

As mentioned above, a degausser wand is the cheapest option for degaussers.

The Proton 1100 Degaussing Wand is also and NSA-listed degausser as well.

If you don’t want to go through the process of taking apart a hard drive every time that you want to destroy data on a hard drive, then you’re going to need a degausser machine.

Our most affordable degaussing machine is the Dataxstroyer 105 Hard Drive Drawer Degausser.

This machine will offer 20 times the convenience that a degausser wand has in terms of time and process saving.

Here is another good question that we get…

But, what if I don’t want to spend $5,000.00 on a degausser?

The best solution for you is to rent a degausser on an as-needed basis.

Renting a degausser can be a good solution if you get rid of your hard drives once a year.

It isn’t as procedurally secure as erasing drives on an ongoing basis, but from a compliance standpoint, if you’re degaussing, you’re doing due diligence on your part.

You can check out the degaussers that are available for rental on our site here .

Do You Have Any Questions About What Type Of Degausser You Need?

This article covers the general options that are out there for purchasing a degausser, however, we know that you may want to speak with someone to confirm that you’re making the right investment.

Call us at 800-243-9226 or contact us here if you have any questions .

We have experts that are ready to help out with any use-case or concern.