Computer hard drives are at the center of technology providing data center and cloud-based storage for personal and corporate information ranging from text-based documents, numerical files, blockchain analytics, crypto proof-of-space to audio, photographic, and video content, and more. When drives reach the end of their useful lives, the content can be transferred to new drives or destroyed to secure the integrity of the stored information.

Serenity Data Security, LLC (Serenity) an electronic media destruction company based in Carbondale, IL has a portfolio of IP, domestic and international, that range from the automated disassembly of hard drives for the recovery of circuit boards and rare earth magnet assemblies to systems that destroy the information bearing sectors of hard drives, while leaving the circuit boards and critical metals sector intact for downstream processing.

Serenity’s current system being introduced to the market will remove the circuit boards from hard disk drives (HHDs), 400 – 600 per hour based on drive configuration, prior to subjecting the drives to an organization’s destruction protocol. This allows for the maximum recovery of precious metals and base metals, which are imbedded in the circuit boards rather than having to sift through the shredded particulates after the physical destruction process. The system can also be programmed to process solid state and hybrid drives.

Serenity’s system consists of a small footprint allowing multiple units to be coupled together for customers requiring an increased number of drives processed per hour. A leading source of hard drives are data centers. U.S. data centers alone produce approximately 15 - 25 million HDDs ready for end-of-life processing annually. The estimated collective weight of the harvested circuit boards is between 937,000 – 1,562,500 lbs., and rare earth magnets is between 119 - 198 MTNs.

The benefits of Serenity’s automated hard drive disassembly system include decreased labor costs, increased process time, and increased profits from precious metal recovery. The system can also contribute to the harvesting of rare earth magnets, which supports the federal government’s mandate to establish a domestic pipeline for critical materials to decrease dependence on foreign sources.