Somewhere in your Boynton Beach office, server room, or offsite storage facility sits a shelf, a cabinet, or a pallet of backup tapes that nobody has touched in years. LTO cartridges from a decommissioned tape library. DLT tapes from a backup system that was replaced by cloud storage a decade ago. DAT and AIT tapes labeled with project names that no one on the current team recognizes.
These tapes are not inert. Every single one contains recoverable data. Client records. Financial transactions. Patient health information. Employee Social Security numbers. Legal case files. The fact that your organization no longer uses the tape system does not mean the data on those cartridges has disappeared. It has not. And under HIPAA, PCI DSS, GLBA, and SOX, your organization is responsible for that data until it is verifiably destroyed and documented.
Backup tapes are the most commonly overlooked data security liability in IT disposal. Organizations that diligently destroy hard drives and SSDs routinely forget about the boxes of backup tapes in storage. A single unprocessed LTO tape can hold up to 45 terabytes of compressed data. That is potentially millions of records sitting on a cartridge the size of a paperback book. |
Excess IT Hardware provides certified tape shredding and degaussing services for Boynton Beach businesses and organizations across Palm Beach County. We destroy every type of magnetic tape media using a combination of electromagnetic degaussing and physical shredding, with serialized Certificates of Data Destruction for every cartridge processed.
Hard drives typically receive one destruction method: shredding, crushing, or erasure. Tape media is different. Best practice for tape destruction is a two-step process that combines degaussing followed by physical shredding. Here is why both steps matter.
A degausser generates a powerful electromagnetic field that randomizes the magnetic domains on the tape surface. This renders all data on the tape permanently unrecoverable. The degaussing process takes seconds per cartridge and is effective against every magnetic tape format regardless of capacity, generation, or encryption status. Degaussing alone qualifies as NIST 800-88 Purge-level sanitization. For a deeper explanation of how degaussing works, see our complete degaussing services page.
After degaussing, the tape cartridge is fed into an industrial shredder that grinds it into fragments. This physical destruction eliminates any theoretical possibility of recovery from the tape substrate and provides the visual, physical evidence of destruction that auditors expect. Combined degaussing and shredding achieves the equivalent of NIST 800-88 Destroy level for tape media. For organizations that also need hard drive destruction, our hard drive shredding service handles HDDs and SSDs alongside tape in the same engagement.
This belt-and-suspenders approach is why we process tape in two steps rather than one. Degaussing alone is compliant. But degaussing plus shredding leaves no room for questions, challenges, or audit findings.
We process all major and legacy magnetic tape formats used by Boynton Beach businesses and organizations across South Florida:
LTO (Linear Tape-Open). LTO-1 through LTO-9 cartridges. The most common enterprise backup tape format. A single LTO-9 cartridge holds up to 45 TB compressed. Our degausser exceeds the coercivity rating of all LTO generations including the highest-density modern cartridges.
DLT and SDLT (Digital Linear Tape). DLT-III, DLT-IV, SDLT 220, SDLT 320, and SDLT 600 cartridges. A legacy format that was widely used in enterprise environments through the early 2010s. Many Boynton Beach organizations still have DLT tapes in storage from systems decommissioned years ago.
AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape). AIT-1 through AIT-5 cartridges, primarily used in Sony drive systems. Common in media production, engineering, and scientific computing environments.
DAT and DDS (Digital Audio Tape / Digital Data Storage). 4mm DAT cartridges in DDS-1 through DDS-5/DAT 72 and DAT 160 formats. Widely used in small to mid-size server backup configurations through the 2000s.
9-Track and legacy reel-to-reel tape. Half-inch open-reel tape from mainframe and legacy computing environments. These tapes can be decades old and may still contain readable data.
Other magnetic media. Zip disks, Jaz disks, floppy disks, and other legacy magnetic removable storage. If it stores data magnetically, we degauss and shred it.
Not sure what format your tapes are? Send us a photo or description and we will identify the media type and recommend the appropriate processing. Check our accepted items list for the full range of media we handle.
More organizations than you would expect. The shift to cloud-based backup has been underway for over a decade, but the physical tapes from the pre-cloud era did not disappear. They were boxed up and put in storage. And in many cases, they are still there.
Healthcare organizations. Medical practices, hospitals, and health systems that ran tape backup before migrating to cloud or disk-based backup. Those old tapes contain patient health information protected under HIPAA. The compliance obligation does not expire because the backup system was retired.
Financial firms and insurance companies. Banks, wealth management offices, and insurance agencies that maintained regulatory tape archives under SOX or GLBA retention requirements. Once the retention period expires, the tapes must be destroyed with documentation, not simply thrown away.
Legal and accounting offices. Firms that archived case files and financial records on tape backup systems. Attorney-client privileged material and client financial data require verifiable destruction when retention obligations are fulfilled.
IT departments completing cloud migrations. Any organization that migrated from on-premises tape backup to cloud storage within the last ten years likely has legacy tapes that were never destroyed. These tapes represent a compliance gap until they are processed.
For organizations also retiring servers, hard drives, and other IT equipment alongside tape media, our ITAD and computer liquidation services handle the entire inventory in a single coordinated engagement.
Online reporting portal for 24/7 access to destruction records and certificates
We provide tape shredding and degaussing services for businesses across Boynton Beach and surrounding communities:
Excess IT Hardware provides hard drive shredding and nationwide IT disposition services for organizations with locations beyond Palm Beach County. Multi-site enterprises can coordinate shredding across every office under a single project with unified serial-level documentation and one compliance report.
We serve businesses across the West Coast and nationwide. Explore services in connected markets:
We destroy all major and legacy magnetic tape formats including LTO (LTO-1 through LTO-9), DLT, SDLT, AIT, DAT/DDS, 9-track open-reel tape, Zip disks, Jaz disks, and floppy disks. If the media stores data magnetically, our degaussing equipment handles it regardless of format, generation, capacity, or encryption status. The degausser generates a field strength exceeding the coercivity of all modern tape formats including the highest-density LTO-9 cartridges. After degaussing, every cartridge is physically shredded for complete destruction.
Tape destruction uses a two-step process that hard drives do not require. First, the tape is degaussed using an electromagnetic field that randomizes all magnetic data on the tape surface, achieving NIST 800-88 Purge level. Second, the degaussed tape is physically shredded, achieving the equivalent of Destroy level. Hard drives can be destroyed through shredding, crushing, or degaussing as standalone methods, but tapes benefit specifically from the combined approach because the tape substrate is thinner and more uniform than a hard drive platter. For hard drive destruction options, see our hard drive shredding service and our comparison guide to all four destruction methods.
Cost depends on the number of cartridges, the format mix, and whether you need on-site degaussing or facility-based processing. Standard pricing is per cartridge. Organizations with large volumes of tapes, such as entire tape library contents or legacy backup archives, typically receive volume pricing that reduces the per-unit cost significantly. For engagements that include both tape destruction and IT equipment recycling, tape processing is often bundled into the overall disposition project at reduced or no additional cost. Contact us with your approximate tape count and format for a specific quote.
Yes. Backup tapes contain exact copies of the data that existed on your servers at the time the backup was created. This includes customer records, financial data, patient health information, employee records, and any other data your organization stored on those systems. The fact that you no longer use the tape drive or backup software does not mean the data is gone. A determined adversary with a compatible tape drive can read the cartridge and extract the data. Under HIPAA, PCI DSS, GLBA, and SOX, your organization remains responsible for protecting that data until it is verifiably destroyed and documented. Legacy tapes in storage are one of the most commonly cited findings in compliance audits.
Yes. We bring portable degaussing equipment to your Boynton Beach location and process tapes while your team observes. On-site degaussing is available for organizations that cannot allow media to leave their premises. After on-site degaussing, tapes are transported under documented chain of custody to our secure facility for physical shredding, or arrangements can be made for on-site shredding for larger engagements. You receive serialized certificates documenting both the degaussing and shredding of each cartridge.
Those boxes of backup tapes are not going to destroy themselves. Every month they sit in storage is another month of unresolved compliance exposure. A single LTO-9 tape can hold 45 terabytes of data. How many tapes are on your shelf?
Excess IT Hardware provides certified tape shredding and degaussing for Boynton Beach businesses. Dual-method destruction. Every format. Serialized certificates. Zero landfill. Schedule your tape destruction today or call us with your tape inventory. We respond within one business day.
Explore our complete data destruction and ITAD services to see every method and service we offer.
