Degausser.com

Why rent degaussers?

Most degaussers that are available as new units can also be easily rented for a short period fo time . Not all organizations have the budget or the volume of media warranting the purchase of new degaussing equipment, especially in today’s financially sensitive times. Certain professional situations require the short term use of degaussing equipment, in which place the decision to rent degausser units makes much more sense. There are even a few system upgrades (i.e., DLT tape systems) that require degaussing of the magnetic tape before upgrading to the next generation of equipment. Thus, renting a degausser for a week, month, or several months in order to erase a finite volume of hard drives or computer tape can be an ideal solution to today’s data security concern.

What should a company look for in a degausser rental?

The criteria for selecting a rental degausser are similar to the criteria used for purchasing a new degausser. These include the volume and type of computer tape or hard drives to be erased, security rating, deployability and budget.

If your workplace will be processing a large one-time job, does your company or organization have a dedicated employee who will be operating the degausser, or will you be hiring an operator for this specific job?

Is the media consolidated in one specific location, or will the degausser be moved between various offices within the same company? If the media is not consolidated and your company requires a more portable degaussing solution, then renting a degausser that comes packed in a hard shipping and transportation case which can be wheeled to the various required locations would be an excellent choice.

Media volume is a primary concern in degausser rental. Does your company need to erase 100 drives or 1,000 drives? How quickly must this degaussing assignment be completed? A manual table-top degausser rental might be ideal for the company with a smaller amount of media to erase, but with a larger quantity of media or a tighter deadline, a conveyor unit or input slide degausser will end up saving time and money.

Make sure you rent a degausser unit that is powerful enough to completely erase your media. Everyone is cost conscious, however don’t be penny wise and pound foolish and try to get away with renting the most inexpensive degausser to erase the newest hard drive on the market. A $70 hand-held degausser that was designed to erase VHS tape does exactly that – it erases analog video tape – and not digital video tape or hard drives. Do the research necessary to determine exactly which type of equipment is needed to meet your technical requirements. If you have any questions, don’t feel shy about speaking with a knowledgeable sales representative. That’s what they’re there for – to help you.

If you’re renting a government certified degausser, it would be prudent to inquire if the degausser has a current NSA certification or if it needs to be recertified. Many older designs of NSA-approved degaussers require annual recertification, and if the degausser hasn’t been recertified within the year, the degausser will need to be recertified in order to maintain its NSA approval. Recertification involves erasing a tape on the unit and then mailing that tape back to the manufacturer so they can guarantee that the tape is being erased to stringent NSA specification. This annual recertification is often an additional cost to the consumer.

And remember, if you are erasing PC hard drives, if you need to reuse, recycle or redeploy the drives, then you will need to rent a hard drive eraser and not a degausser. Degaussing a hard drive renders it inoperable. Degaussing a hard drive renders it inoperable, while the hard drive eraser removes only the data and not the servo tracks. A hard drive eraser enables a user to erase the drive and then recycle and reuse it.

Rent-To-Buy Degaussers

Many times users would actually like to try out a new degausser before purchase. This is easily done by using a degausser rental for a month to see if it meets all of your needs before investing the money in purchasing the unit outright. Oftentimes when one rents a degausser, should the customer later decide to purchase the degausser as a used unit, all or part of the rental price can be applied toward the purchase price. If your distributor applies all of the rental price to the purchase price, you have been able to use the degausser for a month-long trial period at no additional cost. In a best case scenario, the consumer ends up with exactly the right degaussing equipment to meet critical business requirements.