The Ideal 0101: a hard-disk destroyer with three tons of force

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Last year we welcomed a DIY-style hard-disk destroyer into the Labs to wreak its havoc on some unsuspecting platters, but technology has evidently moved on – recently the Ideal 0101 HDP from Duplo (not that Duplo) has turned up.

While it looks like a kitchen cabinet from the eighties, it’s actually a serious piece of kit, with a heavy-duty punch that makes mincemeat out of both 3.5in and 2.5in drives.

Duplo International delivered the machine to us with a bin full of already-destroyed hard disks in tow, but we had to give it a go ourselves. Sure enough, the 3.5in disk we dug up from the bottom of the Labs – an IBM Deskstar sporting a capacious 185GB – was soon rendered useless thanks to a punch that pierces disks with between 2.5 and 3 tons of force, as the following video demonstrates. (more…)

3G iPhone launch day news, 1 of ?: Destruction

Friday, July 11th, 2008

Just hours after the launch of the 3G iPhone, iFixit has already bought and destroyed one. I say destroyed, because I doubt they will be able to put it back together without at least a couple of parts being left over – it’s like flat-pack furniture.

The company sells accessories and replacement parts for Apple products, so the move makes sense, but it still fills me with jealousy.