Frequently Asked Questions

NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 — Clear for media staying inside the organisation, Purge for media leaving it. It is the most widely accepted baseline and it is written for current storage rather than for 1990s drives.

Rarely by name, but many internal policies still cite it and some customers ask for it, so it is implemented. It runs three passes with verification. NIST superseded it as the reference standard.

Because policies still name it. Where a policy says Gutmann, the run has to say Gutmann. The description in the table says plainly that it has no advantage on current drives.

Not where the standard requires it. On those methods the option is locked and the reason is shown to the operator. Turning it off would mean the run was no longer that standard.

Cryptographic erase destroys the key rather than overwriting sectors. There is no plaintext left to hash, so hash verification is locked off for that method rather than on.

It gives you the erasure and the evidence, which is the part of the obligation that touches storage media. Compliance is broader than disposal, and no software makes an organisation compliant on its own.

For as long as you are answerable for the asset, which is set by whichever framework applies to you rather than by the erasure. They are ordinary PDFs and can be archived with the rest of your evidence.

It depends whether they give you a per-device record, and whether the data left your premises before it was erased. Erasing on site, before the asset moves, removes the question entirely.

Yes. Destruction is a legitimate outcome and it is the correct one for a drive that cannot be sanitized. What matters is that the record says which happened to which serial number.

Not here. Where the software implements a published standard, that is stated and can be checked against the run itself. Anything held by our services operation is separate from what the software does.

Not from inside Windows. Boot the machine from the USB image or over PXE; the drive is then no longer in use and can be erased whole.

Up to eight, set from the application's Concurrent Sanitization Limit. Each is tracked as its own job, so a failure on one is reported rather than hidden by the others finishing.

It overwrites the unallocated space those files used to occupy, which is where they still are. It cannot reach a copy that a backup or a shadow copy took at the time.

Not on its own. The controller decides where writes land and can retire blocks that overwriting never reaches. Issue the drive's sanitize or crypto-erase command, then verify it.

No. The erase runs offline. A connection is only needed to activate a licence, and offline activation exists for machines that never get one.

Real exports. Both files are produced by the desktop application in the ordinary way and published unedited. The asset details in them are from our own test hardware.

No. Both files are linked directly on this page. There is no form and nothing is recorded when you download them.

The files are generated with document protection set, and the verification hashes are part of the document. A changed report no longer agrees with the readings it carries.

Yes. The organization, the operator, the approver and the final release team are all recorded on the report from the details set in the application.

Yes — that is the second file. The hardware test report is produced by a diagnostic pass on its own and is what you would use to grade a machine for resale rather than to prove erasure.

Yes. Licences can be activated offline and the software runs entirely on your own network. Certificates are generated and stored locally. This is how most government and defence deployments run.

Yes. Asset tag and custom fields are captured at erasure time and appear on the certificate, so records line up with your CMDB or ITAM tool without manual reconciliation.

It is marked as failed on the report and excluded from the pass list. A drive that cannot be verifiably erased should be physically destroyed, and the report tells you exactly which ones those are.

One machine runs up to eight drives at once, set from the Concurrent Sanitization Limit. The bigger multiplier is booting over the network: one operator starts erasure across a whole floor of workstations from a single console.

Per device erased, not per seat or per machine. You can run it on as many stations as you like and pay for the drives you actually process. Licences do not expire.

Yes. Certificates carry your logo and company details, so the document you hand back to a client is yours rather than ours.

Yes — SATA, SAS, NVMe, M.2, mSATA and PCIe, including self-encrypting drives, where cryptographic erase is issued rather than an overwrite.

Reports export as CSV and PDF for import into ERP and inventory systems, so certificate data does not have to be re-keyed.

Yes. Volume-level erasure runs against the presented LUN while the array stays in service, so decommissioning a volume does not mean a maintenance window for everything else on the same hardware.

By destroying the encryption key rather than overwriting the ciphertext. This is the method NIST SP 800-88 defines as Purge for SEDs, it takes seconds instead of hours, and the result is verified afterwards.

A drive that cannot be read cannot be verifiably erased. Those are flagged for physical destruction and listed separately on the report, so the exception is documented rather than hidden.

Yes. Our engineers work inside your facility, under your access controls and your cameras, and nothing leaves the building until you have the certificates.

The drive is interrogated before anything is written to it, and it reports its own security features. That answer decides the method, which is why the identify step comes first rather than being assumed from the model number on the label.

Yes, and in most data centres it does. Licence activation is offline and certificates are written to storage you control. Nothing about the drives processed is transmitted anywhere.

Because most of what comes out of a rack is a working enterprise SSD with years left in it, and destroying one costs the price of the drive plus the carbon that made it. Shredding is the right answer for a drive that cannot be verified. For the rest it is an expensive way to avoid producing evidence.

It depends on the media, the capacities and the standard your policy names — a cryptographic erase is seconds, a multi-pass overwrite of a large platter drive is hours. Benches run in parallel, so the useful question is how many you can put on the job. Tell us the media mix and the window, and we will give you the number of days.

It runs fully offline. Nothing is reported back and nothing is sent out. Licence activation has an offline path, so the machine never needs a route to the internet at any stage.

NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 selects the method from the medium rather than applying passes for their own sake. Where local policy names DoD 5220.22-M or HMG IS5, those are implemented and recorded by name on the certificate.

Each certificate carries the drive's SHA-256 hash from before the run and after it, and the PDF is generated with editing and copying disabled. What an assessor checks is that the two hashes agree with the outcome the document claims.

Yes. Where policy requires physical destruction, we shred on your site under your supervision and issue a certificate of destruction per asset.

PCI-DSS requires cardholder data to be rendered unrecoverable and the process to be documented. Certified erasure with per-asset verification and a signed certificate addresses both parts. The certificate names the method and the verification result.

Personal data must be erased once the purpose for holding it is served, and a data fiduciary must be able to demonstrate compliance. Per-device certificates are how that demonstration is made for retired hardware.

Yes. The software boots from USB and needs no network. Erasure and certificate generation both happen on site, before anything is moved.

Indefinitely. A certificate records something that happened on a date; it does not expire, and it stays valid even if you stop using the software.

No. Both remove the index that points at the data and leave the data itself on the medium, where ordinary recovery software will find it. Sanitization overwrites or purges the medium and then reads it back to confirm the result.

HIPAA requires PHI to be rendered unusable, unreadable or indecipherable, and points to NIST SP 800-88 for the methods. Clear or Purge under that guidance, verified and documented per device, meets that requirement.

Yes, provided the drive itself is readable. The software boots independently of whatever is installed on the machine, which is what makes it usable on imaging consoles and analysers running embedded or unsupported systems. If the drive has genuinely failed it is flagged for physical destruction instead.

Erase before the device goes back and keep the certificate. Once the hardware is with the supplier, that record is the only thing you still hold, and it is the one that answers a later question.

Yes. Where a drive cannot be erased, or your policy requires destruction regardless, we shred on your site and issue a certificate of destruction per asset.

Yes. PXE-booted erasure runs unattended across the machines you target and reports results when it finishes. Most institutions run it during a break or overnight.

It boots independently of the installed operating system, so mixed Windows, Linux and Chrome fleets are handled the same way. Media type determines the method, not the OS.

Erase and certify first, then redeploy. The certificate is what protects the institution if a donated machine is later found to hold data — and the diagnostic grade tells you whether it is worth donating at all.

Licences are per device erased, which suits a refresh cycle better than per-seat licensing. Talk to us about volumes and we will size it against your refresh plan.

Certificates and reports carry your branding. Talk to us about partner terms if you want to go further than that.

Licences are consumed per device erased and can be used across any number of clients and machines. Reports can be filtered by client so each one gets only their own evidence.

Direct access to the engineers who build the software, deployment help for PXE and boot media, and assistance with client-facing documentation.

No seat minimums. You buy device licences and use them when you need them; they do not expire.