In this video we take a look at how you can decommission a Synology NAS. The main aim of this process, is to ensure that any data that was stored on your NAS remains secure and can not be recovered from your old hardware.
Note: While we specifically looked at secure wiping mechanical hard drives. For Solid State Drives we recommend that you simply encrypt the whole of the SSD and then format that drive. As the encryption key will have been lost after you format the drive, any data should be near impossible to recover.
Quick reference notes:
- Perform a factory reset on your Synology NAS.
- Secure wipe the whole of each hard drive in your NAS.
- Repurpose you’re old hard drives by using them to make backups of your new NAS, or to store files.
- Destroy you’re old hard drives, by preventing them from being accessed.
- Dispose/recycle your old NAS and hard drives
Note: If you prefer not to send your old hardware for dispose/recycling at your municipal dump, you might want to consider using Google’s recycle program However, please note that Google’s recycle program will not securely wipe your data, so you will need to perform a secure wipe on any hardware before you send it in.
Reference materials:
- ZDNet article – How to securely erase hard drives and solid state drives
- Wikipedia article – Data Erasure
- Download WiFiman for Android – Google Play Store
