Data & Media Disposition Advisory
Know where your data lives. Prove where it died.
Physical recycling only solves half the problem. The other half is knowing every place a copy of your data actually sits — on the server, in a snapshot, on a laptop that left with someone months ago — and making sure each one is accounted for. Vitana360's advisory practice is built around combined five decades of enterprise technology and operations leadership, applied to the specific problem of responsibly managing the data lifecycle.
What The Advisory Covers
Six pieces of the data lifecycle
Data discovery & mapping
Before anything is destroyed, we help you inventory where sensitive data actually lives — on-prem servers, endpoints, backups, and cloud storage.
Media-specific destruction
HDD, SSD, tape, RAID, and mobile media each require a different method to be properly and verifiably destroyed. We know which is which.
Cloud data disposition
Verifying deletion of cloud snapshots, replicas, VM disks, and SaaS tenant data when a system or account is retired — not just the hardware.
Lifecycle policy consulting
Building or tightening a data retention and destruction policy mapped to what you're actually regulated under — NIST 800-88, GLBA, HIPAA, SOX, and state privacy law.
Offboarding data hygiene
A recurring checklist tied to HR offboarding — devices, cloud accounts, and shared-drive access closed out consistently, every time.
Documented chain of custody
Every engagement ends with an audit-ready record spanning both the physical devices destroyed and the cloud resources deprovisioned alongside them.
Destruction Methods By Media Type
The right method for each storage type
A common and costly mistake: treating every drive the same. Degaussing, for example, does nothing to flash storage. Here's how we match method to media.
Spinning hard drives
NIST 800-88 Purge via degaussing, with physical shredding available for the highest-sensitivity data. Every drive tracked by serial number.
Solid-state & flash media
Degaussing does not erase flash-based media. We use cryptographic erase and/or physical shredding to sub-2mm particle size instead.
Backup tape (LTO & legacy formats)
Degaussed to NIST Purge standard, followed by physical destruction of the cartridge itself.
Phones & tablets
Manufacturer-level cryptographic erase, verified against device specification, with physical destruction available on request.
RAID arrays, SAN & NAS controllers
Every drive is pulled and logged individually — sanitized or destroyed per its own media type. A rebuilt array can still hold recoverable data if this step is skipped.
Cloud storage & snapshots
Deletion verified at the provider level — snapshots, replicas, and backups — with documentation retained as part of your disposition record.
Frequently Asked
Data disposition, answered
What's the difference between data sanitization and data destruction?
Sanitization renders data unrecoverable while the media can potentially be reused, most often through cryptographic erase. Destruction physically disables the media so it can never be read again. NIST 800-88 treats both as valid end states depending on your risk tolerance and whether the hardware will be reused.
Can solid-state drives be degaussed like traditional hard drives?
No. Degaussing only works on magnetic media. SSDs and other flash storage require cryptographic erase or physical destruction instead — degaussing an SSD does nothing to the data on it.
How do you handle data that lives in the cloud, not just on physical hardware?
We help you inventory the cloud storage, snapshots, and backups tied to a retired system, then verify and document deletion at the provider level as part of the same disposition record as your physical equipment.
Do you help write a data retention and destruction policy, or just execute one?
Both. If you don't have a documented policy yet, we help build one aligned to the regulations that actually apply to your organization. If you already have one, we execute destruction against it and document the result.
What happens to data on equipment that's being repurposed rather than destroyed?
Any device slated for reuse is sanitized first, with the method and verification documented exactly as it would be for a device headed for physical destruction.
Start A Conversation
Talk to us about your data
Tell us what you're trying to solve — we'll follow up to scope an assessment or engagement. Just need standard equipment picked up? Use the pickup form instead.
Direct
- recycle@vitana360.com