US-12623229-B2 - Magnetic storage declassification device

US12623229B2US 12623229 B2US12623229 B2US 12623229B2US-12623229-B2

Abstract

A media declassification device receives a media component such as a magnetic hard disk drive, and deletes data stored thereon by physical agitation and dismantling the media component. A cutting blade shears or grinds a perimeter region around a top of the hard disk drive (HDD drive, or simply drive) to a predetermined depth calculated to remove heads from screws and other fasteners securing a metal top panel. Inversion of the drive allows a magnetic media platter upon which data is stored to simply drop out. The magnetic platter is fed into a shredding device for obliteration to sufficiently small particles for declassification, while rare earth magnets are removed from the remaining drive chassis, and the now declassified chassis discarded into a recycling stream.

Inventors

Thomas Delahunty
Eugene McCabe

Assignees

IRON MOUNTAIN INCORPORATED

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20221011

Claims (11)

1 . A media declassification device for a hard disk drive (HDD), comprising: an agitator having a plurality of cutting edges configured to dismantle rigid materials; a guidance element configured to direct an enclosure of the HDD against the agitator; and a processor configured to execute a computer program to cause the media declassification device to: dispose, using the guidance element, the enclosure in communication with the agitator to engage a planar portion of the enclosure to dismantle the planar portion and liberating a magnetic platter from restraint by the enclosure; invert, using the guidance element, the enclosure to release the magnetic platter from the enclosure thereby resulting in a released magnetic platter; and dispose, using the guidance element, the released magnetic platter in communication with a fragmentation device, wherein the fragmentation device comprises rotating blades and a mesh screen, wherein the rotating blades are configured to fragment the magnetic platter, and wherein the mesh screen defines a predetermined passage size defining a maximum size of passed fragments.
2 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the processor is further configured to direct the enclosure relative to the agitator such that the agitator is configured to shear fragments of the enclosure to disengage the enclosure and liberate the magnetic platter from restraint by the enclosure.
3 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the guidance element includes a robotic member configured to secure the enclosure and dispose the enclosure to engage with the agitator.
4 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the agitator further comprises a rotary member having edges, wherein the edges are configured to shear fragments of the enclosure.
5 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the processor is further configured to identify a top of the enclosure, wherein the top of the enclosure comprises a planar panel longitudinally extending across the HDD and in a parallel adjacency with a plane in which the magnetic platter rotates.
6 . The media declassification device of claim 3 wherein the processor is further configured to remove, using the agitator, at least a portion of the enclosure defined by a fastener region of a top of the enclosure and having a fastener depth.
7 . The media declassification device of claim 3 wherein the guidance element further comprises a conveyor configured to transport the enclosure to proximity of the robotic member.
8 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the agitator is a rotating blade configured to cut to a limit defined by a plane, the plane based on a thickness of a top panel of the enclosure.
9 . The media declassification device of claim 1 wherein the agitator is a fluted bit having shear edges on each of a plurality of edges around an circumferential body.
10 . The media declassification device of claim 1 further comprising: a mechanical gate configured to identify and denote the HDD as declassified using optical recognition.
11 . The media declassification device of claim 1 further comprising a heating element configured to heat and remove magnetic members of a read-write head of the HDD.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS This patent application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119 (e) of U.S. Provisional Patent App. No. 63/254,677, filed Oct. 12, 2021, entitled “MAGNETIC STORAGE DECLASSIFICATION DEVICE” incorporated herein by reference in entirety. BACKGROUND Modern electronic proliferation of information has led to a tremendous quantity of data, sensitive and otherwise, being stored in electronic form, typically in non-volatile memory such as Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), SSDs Solid State Drives (SSDs) and other forms of electronic and magnetic media. Deletion of sensitive information from electronic sources can be elusive, however. Many deletion operations merely reflag or designate areas corresponding to deleted data as available for new data, without actually overwriting or modifying the deleted region. Direct access mechanisms, which access media on a location basis, rather than through a file system, can bypass the deletion flags and effectively access “deleted” data. Further, even when data is overwritten with new data, techniques exist to recover residual indications of previously stored data. SUMMARY AND DISCLOSURE A media declassification device receives a media component such as a magnetic hard disk drive, and deletes data stored thereon by physical agitation and dismantling the media component. A cutting blade shears or grinds a perimeter region around a top of the hard disk drive (HDD drive, or simply drive) to a predetermined depth calculated to remove heads from screws and other fasteners securing a metal top panel. Inversion of the drive allows a magnetic media platter upon which data is stored to simply drop out. The magnetic platter is fed into a shredding device for obliteration to sufficiently small particles for declassification, while rare earth magnets are removed from the remaining drive chassis, and the now declassified chassis discarded into a recycling stream. Configurations herein are based, in part, on the observation that it can be problematic to ensure complete erasure of data from storage media once the media has been taken out of service. Data security techniques often impose requirements of overwriting and unreadability for decommissioned media; in the case of governmental regulations governing sensitive data, physical dismantling of media to a particle size deemed unreadable is required to render formerly classified data as “declassified.” Storage devices, however, typically include an enclosure around a chassis with electronics and mechanical elements for accessing the magnetic media platter on which information is actually encoded. HDDs, unlike their solid state counterparts, include substantial metal and mechanical components having a volume substantially greater than the media platter in need of declassification. It would be inefficient to require the entire volume of the drive apparatus to undergo the physical dismantling and/or shredding that need be applied only to the media platter on which the data is stored. Unfortunately, conventional approaches suffer from the shortcoming that it can be problematic to automate the drive disassembly to separate the platter because the drive is a metal enclosure with fasteners that vary in type, location and size among different vendors. Accordingly, configurations herein substantially overcome the shortcomings of conventional disk drive declassification by identifying a fastener region on the disk drive and providing a milling head that shears and obliterates the fastener region to a depth sufficient to eradicate the fasteners and enclosure top that retain the platter. Once the screws are ground away, the remainder of the top enclosure panel, and the platter, are detached. Liberation of the enclosure surface adjacent the media platter allows the platter to simply release when the enclosure is inverted, and “fall out,” either into a holding repository or directly into a shredding or declassification stream targeting only the media platter. In other words, only the platter, not the entire drive mechanism, is directed to the declassification shredder process. In further detail, the device herein implements a system for declassification of sensitive media materials by dismantling storage media and rendering to an unreadable granular texture, including a robotic receptacle configured to receive a storage device having a rotating platter for magnetic encoding. The storage device typically has a planar panel in a parallel alignment with the rotating platter adapted for informational storage, and retained by the planar panel, often the top or bottom panel of the enclosure. A rotating agitator or milling blade has a plurality of cutting edges for dismantling and shearing the panel. Processor based control logic directs the agitator, such that the agitator is responsive to the control logic for disposing the enclosure in communication with the agitator to engage the panel for dismantling and liberating a magnetic platter from restraint