This SSD will literally self-destruct in 10 seconds

Data security has never been more important… and never been easier to mess up. You probably know that simply deleting your files isn’t really enough to “destroy” them—a basic tech support worker might be able to recover them, while a forensic analyst certainly could. TeamGroup is hoping to market a new “self-destructing” SSD to those who need their data absolutely, completely destroyed on demand.

The P250Q-M80 solid-state drive (spotted by VideoCardz.com) features a “one-click data destruction” tool, which includes a dedicated circuit that will just straight-up destroy the drive’s flash memory at the press of a button. And that’s no turn of phrase: you can literally wire up this feature to an actual button—one that’s completely separate from your computer—to manually initiate the destruction process. Its progress will be read out on a series of LEDs, and it should keep working even if the system loses access to electricity in the middle of the process.

An official video from the Computex YouTube channel shows the feature in action, with a 10-second hold of an external button physically destroying the NAND chips. There’s also a bit of smoke coming off the drive, though I honestly don’t know if that’s real or a bit of Mission: Impossible-inspired showmanship.

The drive features all the conventional bells and whistles of a secure Gen 4 SSD, including slower methods of permanent data erasure that don’t actually brick the drive. But TeamGroup reckons that this functionality will be useful for defense or automation customers. And if I may wax editorial, I’m sure there are plenty of people who have an (ahem) interpretive approach to the law who might be interested in it, too.

At 7,000 MB/s read and 5,500 MB/s write, this drive is pretty zippy but nothing compared to the fastest on the market. And with a maximum capacity of 2TB, it won’t break any records there either. But we’re talking about very specialized hardware made for an incredibly specific purpose. In fact, it’s so specialized that TeamGroup isn’t saying how much it costs, though you’re welcome to inquire on the company’s website.