Had to pick between a hard drive shredder and a degausser for my old office data

I went with the degausser because it was faster, but three drives later the magnetic field killed my watch and IT still found readable platters.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lisa7d ago

Wait, it killed your watch? Like just straight up fried it with the magnetic field? That's wild, I would've never even thought about that.

dixon.ryan7d ago

Are you sure it was the magnet that did it? @the_lisa I think you might be giving the magnet too much credit here. Watches don't just die from being near a magnet that easily unless it's something crazy powerful or the watch was already on its last legs. Most modern watches like automatics or quartz have some basic shielding. A standard rare earth magnet from a gadget shouldn't nuke a modern watch unless you sat there pressing it directly against the movement for minutes. And even then, lots of times it just throws the timing off, not kills it outright. I've slapped magnets on cheap Casios and they were fine after I took it away. Sounds more like a coincidence or a bad watch to me.