Enterprise server components

3D view of a representative 2U rack server with twelve front drive bays

Rack servers combine data-bearing drives, processors, memory, cooling fans, heat sinks and power supplies. Designs with hard disk drives can also contain rare-earth magnets in the drive assembly.

Data-bearing media completes its required sanitization or destruction before reuse or recovery. The drives and components a server actually uses determine which materials are available.

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Magnets in hard disk drives

Rare-earth magnet applications include hard disk drives. Whether a specific drive contains one, and which alloy it uses, depends on the drive’s design.

Product documentation or material characterization identifies the magnet. Data security comes first: a drive completes its required sanitization or destruction before any recovery step.

Drawing of a representative 3.5-inch hard disk drive with its cover removed: three platters on the spindle, the head-stack arm on its pivot with a copper voice coil over the lower magnet, and the top magnet yoke lying beside the drive, magnet facing up. — A representative 3.5-inch hard disk drive. The arm that carries the read and write heads is swung by a copper voice coil between two permanent magnets; the top one lies beside the drive on its steel yoke. Whether those magnets are rare-earth alloys depends on the drive’s design.