Resources
The obligations, in plain English
Reference pages for operators who have just been handed a requirement. Answered in the first paragraph, sourced to the primary document, kept current, and written for the United States.
Interactive · about two minutes
Find the Serial
Scan the right barcode on ten invented drive labels, then run the same drives with Serial Xtractor.
October 29, 2026 · United States
A Barcode Is a Keyboard: Why Scanning Drives Into a Spreadsheet Isn't Evidence
Why scanning drive barcodes into a spreadsheet isn’t evidence of destruction, what shredder add-ons change, and what capture at the feed should do.
October 29, 2026 · United States
Received Isn't Destroyed: What Your Certificate of Destruction Can't Prove
What a certificate of destruction should contain under NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2, where the gap is, how to test the one you are given, and a free template.
October 29, 2026 · United States
Buying a Hard Drive Shredder? Start With What It Has to Prove
Standards, particle size, the NSA list, running costs, throughput and future-proofing, and the record it should hand you after every job.
October 22, 2026 · United States
Erasure or destruction: which drives go where
Most drives in a decommission are either wiped and reused or destroyed. The choice decides what evidence you'll need at the end of the job.
October 22, 2026 · United States
How to record drive serial numbers in ITAD: five ways compared
Typing, barcode scanners, erasure software, camera apps and Serial Xtractor. Each one is best at something, and most operators use more than one.
October 22, 2026 · United States
ITAD software for chain of custody, compared
Seven tools that hold the record of an ITAD job, from full ERPs to erasure software, described by what each vendor's own site says.
September 16, 2026 · United States
The path to 99%: what we measure, what we publish, and how far we have to go
Our serial identification model picks the right serial on 97.7% of the drive labels it can read. Here is what that number is a share of, how we measured it, and what it will take to reach 99%.
September 10, 2026 · United States
How do you prove which drive was destroyed?
The serial number gets recorded. It just doesn’t get recorded where the destruction happens — and a record made somewhere else, earlier, by someone who then walked the drive across a floor, is an assertion rather than evidence for one.
September 2, 2026 · United States
How to automate chain of custody in ITAD
Chain of custody is not a document you produce at the end. It is a claim about every device you touched, and automating it means capturing the evidence at the moment the work happens rather than reconstructing it after.
August 30, 2026 · United States
Verification and validation are not the same thing
Revision 2 made them two separate obligations, recorded separately. Verification is the check at the machine. Validation is the decision that accepts what the check leaves behind — and that is the gap an assessor finds first.
August 17, 2026 · United States
How long must you keep a certificate of destruction?
Three to seven years is the working answer. The real answer is set by your client's regulator, not by your client — and often not by anything they will tell you unprompted.
August 17, 2026 · United States
NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 — what changed, and what you have to do
Revision 1 was withdrawn on September 26, 2025. If your disposal policy, your contracts or your certificate template still cite it, they cite a withdrawn document. Here is what changed and what to update.
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