Customer receives Samsung's blessing to smash their SSD with a hammer

person holding new modern fast ssd m2 drive to replace it on computer — (Image credit: Михаил Руденко via Getty Images)

In order to be sure that a customer's data would be secured during a returns process for an SSD, Samsung is said to have recommended the customer take aggressive action and destroy the SSD before sending it back.

As a customer of Samsung's reports to Igor's Lab (via Tom's Hardware): while they were filing an RMA with Samsung because their SSD was faulty and showing signs of nearing death, there was some back and forth regarding the data on the drive and how super-duper secure it needed to be even in transit back to Samsung. The entire interaction was not published for privacy, but we have the final conclusion the two parties are said to have come to. That was to tell the customer they needed to destroy the drive before it was returned to them.

The customer was instructed by Samsung to take a hammer to their SSD or perhaps drill holes in it to ensure it's no longer in a fit state for any potential data thieves to take advantage of.

This was an exception to their customer support case, however, so don't do this before you've been given the green light to do so. You probably have to jump through a lot of hoops like this customer reportedly did to get any company to sign off on this sort of action. You'll need plenty of proof your SSD is broken, too.

It's true that destroying the actual cells of your storage format is the most secure way to ensure no one is getting their hands on your data. While it's still technically possible to recover data from even a sliver of functioning storage, who's really going to go through the effort for your album of memes from 2012? Encryption is also great for data privacy, of course, so you could get away with that in some cases (when your SSD isn't already broken).

Ultimately it's good that Samsung is happy to take a drive back that's been proven to be b0rked and thus allowing a sanctified smashing to take place. Otherwise there really wouldn't be any easy way to get that drive back and a replacement or refund out of the company for the customer.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.