Broadband Tech > Security > Security > How Google wipes their hard drives

We tell clients we can do a chargeable DoD compliant erase for them, or they can work out some angst with a sledge hammer on their garage floor. I guess Google is copying us.

Easter eggs abound on a hunt on a virtual reality tour of Google's server farm

Google Inc. (GOOG) long was seriously secret about its data centers. But in recent years it has performed an abrupt about face. Secure in its dominant position, it has actually become one of the most open internet companies in terms of revealing the secrets that make its data centers so efficient (Facebook, Inc. (FB) is another giant who has practiced similar open-sourcing policies).

To commemorate its $600M USD Lenoir, North Carolina data center (constructed in 2007), Google has posted a gallery dubbed "Where the Internet Lives". The pages are filled with stunning photos by Connie Zhou, including employee profiles, which introduce the public to some of Google's thousands of data center professionals.

Better yet, Google has offered up virtual Street View tours of the exterior and interior of its data centers.

The inside views are pretty neat, and there's plenty of Easter Eggs to be found (say the odd Android) -- and a number of employees on the job:

So they destroy the drives after Bob reads everything from them?

We tell clients we can do a chargeable DoD compliant erase for them, or they can work out some angst with a sledge hammer on their garage floor. I guess Google is copying us.

How do you destroy the data on old drives?

If that van ever comes back I'm going to have some fun by walking up to it with a camera in one hand and a notebook in another. "Can I help you?".

...Bob's future visit(s) will be at 4,500+ ft using a drone.

So if you really want that extra piece of mind, don't just wipe the data... destroy the drives the Google way!