In line with a report by Igor’s Lab, (opens in new tab) Samsung has taken information safety to an entire stage. In communication with one in all its shoppers, Samsung advised the person destroy the Samsung 980 Professional SSD within the identify of information safety. Moreover, the RMA course of involving this buyer included a inexperienced gentle to drill or hammer the drive into items.
The story begins with a person on the Igor’s Lab discussion board coping with an nearly useless and really costly Samsung 980 Professional 2TB, one of many finest SSDs in the marketplace. A diagnostic scan from Samsung Magician reveals the drive was dying, with errors showing all over the place on the NAND flash.
With the drive nearly useless, the client contacted Samsung help to get a alternative as quickly as potential and confirmed Samsung the faulty drive information from Samsung Magician. Sadly, we do not have all the small print on Samsung’s communication with the person, as most of it was reportedly delicate, and a few communication was completed via cellphone calls.
Nonetheless, we will simply assume the person had very delicate information saved on the SSD to make sense of Samsung’s subsequent transfer. Samsung seemingly made an exception (that was made non-public as a result of what we beforehand mentioned) and, because of this, gave the person full rights to destroy the drive earlier than sending it off to Samsung to finish the RMA course of. The official quotes from Samsung help went as far as to element destroy the drive, suggesting drilling or hammering the drive to items.
For apparent causes, Samsung additionally states that movies or photos have to be taken off the smashed or drilled drive to make sure it is aware of what state the drive was left in when it arrived at Samsung’s manufacturing facility.
This case may be very totally different from the standard RMA course of you would possibly undergo your self you probably have a faulty or useless drive inside guarantee. Normally, it’s essential ship the drive as is (not smashed) again to the producer, the place inspectors will double-check the problems you initially reported in your RMA ticket after which ship you a brand new drive if wanted.
It’s the first time we have ever heard of an RMA course of involving drive smashing or drilling of any form. However it’s nice information for customers and companies with a useless drive on their palms however would not need to give it away to the producer that includes delicate information. Deleting delicate recordsdata inside Home windows will not wipe it out on the drive bodily till one thing else is written to the NAND a number of occasions over.
If the information is delicate sufficient in Samsung’s case, it should enable drive destruction to protect the consumer’s information safety in any respect prices.
