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I agree with all you said... again the NSA, the only solution is total disintegration, not even drive shredding would be enough for me, since that just cuts it into strips and you never can tell...

https://www.semshred.com/disin...

Few companies actually offer HDD disintegration, most only offer it for SSDs...

I imagine that completely and totally reducing a HDD to fine dust is expensive and few people really need to do it.

I recommend a sledgehammer instead.

While that sounds fun, it likely would be less effective than you might think...

Or it might be, but can you be sure?

https://www.semshred.com/conte...

Have you ever tried to erase data from a hard drive with a magnet? There's a reason physical destruction is often used when high security is required. There are commercial degaussers available, but playing music on a loudspeaker isn't going to do a thing.

For systems that have held Top Secret data the media won't be sold, it will be destroyed. The consequences of possible loss are considered too severe. I believe I've read that they have facilities for destruction themselves. It looks like one of the ways they do it is the use of High Security Disentegrators which reduce everything to no more then 3/32" size. Examples here.

I suppose it is possible that they might outsource it, but there would obviously have to be tight controls in place to assure destruction.

Or, shred the documents, slather them in peanut butter, feed them to goats, feed the goats to lions, slaughter the lions, grind them into meatballs, cook them over an open flame, feed those meatballs to a tapeworm, then put the tapeworm through the shredder and repeat.

I'm being sarcastic, a shredder is adequate for even the most sensitive documents. These shredders are are the NSA's Evaluated Product List: https://www.semshred.com/level_6_shredders

There are also places that just wipe the drive ~3 times with alternating random data and zeros.

http://www.semshred.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php /id/680/tp/VE1HUj0xLHRpZD02NzIs

http://www.semshred.com/content291.html

Or just get one of these bad boys:

4033 Industrial Shredder
The Ultimate in Central Shredding Systems. Designed to be versatile to work as a stand alone destruction unit or in combination with a disintegrator for maximum size reduction. The Model 4033 shredder is capable of destroying bulk product from roll stock to whole computer towers into pieces 2" wide at random lengths. Add a disintegrator to achieve particle sizes to meet DoD requirements.

Disintigrator description:

Waste material is fed into the machine through a safety feed hopper. The cutting mechanism consists of 2 to 5 knives mounted on a steel rotor that pass 2 stationary bed knives (0.005 inch gap) at 500-600 rotations per minute (RPM) for up to 6,000 cuts per minute.

Waste is cut until small enough to fall through a perforated steel screen beneath the cutting rotor. The screens are interchangeable so that the degree of destruction can be varied from 3/32 to 3 inches. Thick, tough materials such as diskettes and CD-ROMs can be destroyed with less power and less chance of jams due to the high mass of the rotor and thickness of the knives.

http://www.semshred.com/content603.html

No home should be without one.

Although personally, the only times I've bought a new mobile phone were to replace the old ones I'd lost or broken. If someone wants to try to repair a phone that's taken a saltwater bath in order to steal my contact numbers, more power to them.