In regard to: [Networker] time to grind some tapes!, Francis Swasey said...:

I have convinced my manager that keeping 18 years of backup clone tapes
is not the best use of our limited vault space.  Therefore, I have
permission to dispose of about 2000 8mm tapes.  That's more than I want

to hit with a sledge hammer myself.

Does anyone have a recommended vendor for mass (secure) tape disposals?

Not to be too gross, but...

If your campus has a veterinary program or other medical-related program,
you may have a biomedical incinerator on campus.  Our vet program has
one large enough for farm animal carcasses, and they were willing to
allow us to dispose of almost 400 DLT IV tapes in the incinerator.  I
don't remember the details, but the burn temperature was somewhere in
the 1100-1800 F range.

On the down side, tossing tapes into an incinerator like that can be
a stinky job.  The things I do for IT security.  ;-)

PS: option #2 would be to talk to someone in your chemistry department
and find out if they have any NMR equipment, or anything else with an
extremely strong magnet.  Our NMR lab has a circular dotted line painted
on the floor around the NMR equipment.  If you're standing inside that
line when the equipment is running, the magnetic stripe on all the cards
in your wallet just got scrambled.  If you're not required to physically
destroy the tapes (just make sure the data on them is gone), equipment
like that can do a wonderful job degaussing the tapes.

Tim
--
Tim Mooney                                        Tim.Mooney AT ndsu DOT edu
Information Technology Services                   (701) 231-1076 (Voice)
Room 242-J6, IACC Building                        (701) 231-8541 (Fax)
North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164

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