More technical information needed?

For example, if you have a large hard drive, to make a very simple overwrite of zeros will take much less time to complete than writing random data (more effective). And the more passes that are required (effectively increasing the level of protection), the longer it takes. Common standards range from as few as 1 passes up to 35 passes. If the process used also verifies each write at the end of each pass, then the whole process will take longer than using a different wipe method that doesn’t verify at all or waits until the very end of the last pass to verify that the data has been overwritten.

Whichever method you use, they all have Pro’s and Con’s which we would be happy to discuss with you.

Here is a guide to a few of the most commonly recognised international standards for data wiping:

Canadian Standard
RCMP TSSIT OPS-II (Four-pass wipe)

This method uses four different passes. It alternates ones and zeros to write over data on the first three passes, it then writes random characters on the fourth and verifies that step was successful. This method is similar to a US-based standard which is called NAVSO P-5239-26, defined by the US Navy.

US Department of Defence
DoD 5220.22-M (Three-pass wipe)

US Department of Defence standards are another military-grade option for data destruction. This works very similarly to the Canadian and US Naval standards. It uses zeros in the first pass and ones in the second pass, followed by a random character in the third. The main difference between the Canadian and Navy standard and this DOD is that each pass is verified along the way.