Difference Between Mobile and Hard Drive Wiping Software

Summary: Mobile vs hard drive wiping software is an important differentiation to understand. This blog will walk you through the key differences between mobile vs hard drive wiping software. And will help you ensure data privacy and security.
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According to data from NortonLifeLock’s 2022 Cyber Safety Insights report,  8 in 10 consumers are concerned about data privacy.

One of the most overlooked aspects of data security is data governance for end-of-life devices.

That’s where data wiping emerges as a solution. Organisations rely on data wiping to delete all data they don’t need anymore permanently, so it can’t be stolen.

Storage devices have different data storage systems. So, the data-wiping software to be used also varies.

Important: Contrary to belief, mobile and hard drive wiping software cannot be used interchangeably.

These two software types serve very distinct purposes.

Mobile wiping software is used to delete data permanently from mobile devices and hard drive wiping software is used to delete data permanently from computer hard drives.

That’s not all though. The data storage in mobile vs hard drive wiping are vastly different.

Thus, understanding the differences between mobile wiping vs hard drive wiping software can play a vital role in keeping your information safe.

Read on to learn more.

Mobile vs Hard Drive Wiping Software

Here’s a quick rundown of mobile vs hard drive wiping software

Key Differences	Mobile Wiping Software	Hard Drive Wiping Software
Type of Device Supports	Mobile Devices (smartphones, tablets, iPhone and iPad)	All types of Hard Drives
Type of Data	Used for personal data (contacts, messages, media files, etc.)	Mostly used for business data (financial records, confidential information, etc.)
Comprehensiveness	Erases complete data from the mobile	Erases complete data and OS as well from the entire drive
Use Cases	Mostly used to protect personal data, before resale or recycling	Mostly used to erase sensitive data before recycling, selling, or disposing of the device
Data Wiping Capabilities	Offers data erasure in compliance with up to 10 international media sanitisation standards and data wiping methods relevant to mobile devices. Examples: DoD (3 & 7 passes), NIST 800-88, HMG	Offers data erasure in compliance with a higher number (up to 25) international media sanitisation standards and data wiping methods relevant to drives. Examples: NIST 800-88, DoD 5220.22-M, HMG, Peter Gutmann, NATO Standard.
Efficiency	Data wiping time vary as per the storage capacity.	Data wiping time vary as per the storage capacity and type of the hard drive.

Top 5 Situations Where You Need a Mobile Data Wiping Software

1. When you decide to dispose of your mobile device permanently
2. When you transfer your personal data from the old mobile device to the new one
3. When you no longer need old data on your mobile device
4. When you are required to comply with regulatory mandates and have to submit proof of data wiping as per compliance and international standards
5. When you are selling or donating your mobile device

Top 5 Situations Where You Need Hard Drive Wiping Software

1. When you decide to dispose of your IT assets permanently
2. When you are returning leased IT hardware
3. When you are upgrading your system hardware
4. When you have to generate tamper-proof reports and certificates of erasure for compliance.
5. When you are reallocating devices to new users

Features of Mobile Data Wiping Software

1. Compatibility with major mobile operating systems like iOS and Android.
2. Erasure of working mobile devices even with broken screens.
3. Data erasure report should include mobile device-specific details like IMEI number, device model, FMIP / FMD Lock status, capacity, and diagnostic results
4. Device diagnostics report should include an accurate analysis of device components, like battery, microphone, camera, GPS, Bluetooth, etc.
5. Compatible with the latest versions of Android and iOS.

Features of Hard Drive Data Wiping Software

1. Support for multiple drive types like SATA, PATA, SSD, NVMe, M.2, PCI, SAS, SCSI, IDE, USB, Fibre Channel & FireWire.
2. Supports multiple block-size drives
3. Supports RAID dismantling
4. Offers customizable ISO image to preconfigure the settings for efficient deployment
5. Compatible with the latest Windows and macOS versions

Which Software Should I Use for Mobile and Hard Drive Wiping?

Stellar has developed a range of data-wiping software solutions. This ensures the availability of appropriate data-wiping software for different use cases.

Bitraser Drive Eraser can securely erase data from HDD & SSD. For mobile devices, Bitraser Mobile Eraser and diagnostics can securely erase data from iOS and Android.

Explore Bitraser’s range of data-wiping solutions here.