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RECYCLICTECH

United Kingdom · original

SSD and NVMe destruction — why a magnet is the wrong UK answer

An SSD is not a spinning disk. Degaussing it and calling the job done is a UK GDPR hole. RecyclicTech treats SATA SSD, SAS SSD and NVMe as flash: cryptographic erase or block erase where the method can be verified, physical destruction when it cannot. IEEE 2883 is named only when that is the method that ran. A magnet, a factory reset or a BitLocker “delete the key” line will not be certified.

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Gloved hands closing a labelled carton — SSD and NVMe serials stay with the chain, not in mixed scrap

What to take from this page

  • Flash does not degauss. RecyclicTech will not pretend it does.
  • NVMe and SATA SSD are named as such on the file.
  • Failed sanitize becomes Destroy on the same certificate.
  • A recycling ticket still is not that certificate.

What we run on flash

Vendor sanitize / cryptographic erase when the device supports it and verification succeeds. Physical destruction when it does not. The certificate says which. We do not print both for show.

What we refuse to print

“DoD 3-pass” on an NVMe. A magnet. A format. A screenshot of Disk Utility. If a competitor’s SSD page leads with a degausser, that page is about HDDs wearing an SSD headline.

Official sources

Written 2026-08-28. Not a paraphrase of the pages currently ranking for this query.

Questions

Straight answers.

Can SSDs be securely erased?+

Often yes, when sanitize completes and is verified. RecyclicTech names that method. If it fails, the serial is destroyed.

Do you use IEEE 2883?+

When that is the method that ran. We do not stack NIST and IEEE on one line to look current.

Are laptop NVMe sticks in scope?+

Yes. They are pulled, labelled and certified like any other data-bearing serial. They are not left in a chassis heading for WEEE.

Is shredding an SSD more GDPR-compliant?+

Not automatically. Documented sanitize can be appropriate. Shredding saleable flash is waste.