Facepalm: A viral post on Reddit highlights the importance of proper data disposal practices. According to the story, a company's "IT guy" used a drill to destroy a solid-state drive before salvaging it. The problem? He drilled a single hole through the center of the casing, piercing the shell but never touching the small PCB inside – effectively making the attempt at data destruction useless.
Power tools like drills have long been used to physically mangle storage devices, but only when used properly. With traditional mechanical hard drives, a few scattered holes are often enough to destroy the platters inside and make data recovery nearly impossible. Drilling can be effective on SSDs as well, but only if you actually make contact with the internal structure.
As the Reddit story illustrates, some SSDs utilize small PCBs that don't fill out the entire drive shell.
Should you find yourself in a similar situation, it'd probably be best to drill multiple holes in the drive at different points. To ensure you hit the mark, you could always open the outer shell and aim directly at the chips on the PCB. Most 2.5-inch SSDs are held shut with a handful of screws and although opening the case will likely void your warranty, that's not a concern as you're already attacking it with a power tool.
Of course, a drill isn't the only tool that can effectively destroy a drive. If you have access to firearms and a safe place to shoot, old drives can make excellent targets. They also don't hold up well when beat with a hammer or tossed in a fire. Just saying.
It's also not a bad idea to attempt to securely wipe drives before physically destroying them. In the case of the Reddit drive, had the IT guy wiped the drive before attempting to drill it, the odds of the next owner being able to extract anything off it would have been much lower.
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IT worker tried to destroy an SSD with a drill and failed spectacularly
