As part of the planning for some infosec workshops to be held this coming fall, we decided to prototype a hard drive destruction process using thermite. Max Mahoney (Chemistry) supervised the thermite making, using aluminum powder and iron oxide, with some magnesium ribbon for a fuse. We loaded that into nested clay flower pots, and sandwiched the hard drive between two cinder blocks.
Turns out we didn’t quite kill it.
For our next attempt, we’ll use more thermite, and remove the casing to make the platters more vulnerable. Pretty fun for a first attempt though!