MRI systems: from life saver to disk killer

Georgia Tech has invented a new weapon of mass destruction for disk drive data. The system consists of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine that creates a very powerful magnetic field to wipe every last trace of data off a disk, according to a story in MIT's Technology Review (see How to Kill a Hard Drive). The prototype was developed for military use, but its designers hope to create a unit that companies with sensitive data, such as banks, can use in a few years.

But is it overkill for most business applications? At 125 pounds, the prototype is a bit bulky and the powerful magetic fields mean you'd have to isolate the system from other equipment. Users concerned about complete data erasure could also shred the disks or encrypt the data (a process called crypto-erasure), but in most cases, off-the-shelf disk erasure tools work fine if used properly, according to Ontrack Data Recovery, a company that specializes in getting data back.  "If data is overwritten, in general we’re not going to recover it and nobody else is," says Mike Burmeister, director of engineering for data recovery at Ontrack.