Studios and production companies in Hackney build up storage quickly. A NAS fills up, a bigger one replaces it, and the old unit goes into a cupboard with a stack of edit drives, shuttle drives and a few disks a freelancer handed back after a job. Most of those disks still hold client footage, unreleased work or contracts. This guide covers how to retire that kit properly when you upgrade, move studio or wind down a project.
Why studio storage needs more care than office laptops
A creative studio's storage is rarely just its own data. Rushes, masters, artwork, music stems and product shots usually belong to a client, and many commissions come with a non-disclosure agreement or a contract clause about returning or deleting material at the end of the job. Footage can also show identifiable people, such as interviewees, contributors and members of the public, which makes it personal data under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. You are expected to keep it secure for as long as you hold it, including on hardware you no longer use.
The other difference is volume. A single NAS can hold years of projects, and the disks inside it are often swapped and upgraded over time. So it is easy to lose track of where everything has been.
Step 1: count every disk, not just every box
Before anything leaves the studio, make a list of each storage device by serial number. In a studio that usually means:
- The NAS itself and every drive in its bays, including any M.2 SSDs fitted as cache. Cache drives are easy to forget because they sit inside the unit, and they can hold copies of recently used files.
- Spare and replaced NAS drives. Disks pulled out after a warning or swapped for bigger ones during an upgrade often end up in a drawer, still full of data.
- Edit and shuttle drives used to move footage between the set, the edit suite and the client.
- Drives from freelancers and agencies that were returned to you, and any of your drives still out with them.
- Workstations and render machines, which often have a fast internal SSD used as a scratch or cache disk.
- Camera media and card readers left in kit bags, if your production work uses them.
Note the bay number for each NAS drive as you remove it. If you need to read the old array again before it is destroyed, the order can matter.
Step 2: make sure nothing is lost before anything is destroyed
Destruction is final, so check the archive first. Confirm that every project you need to keep has been copied to the new storage or archive, and open a sample of files from the copy rather than relying on a progress bar. Then check your contracts. Some clients ask for their material to be deleted at the end of a job, others expect you to keep masters for a set period. Your retention decision should come from those terms and your own records policy, not from what happens to be on the old NAS.
If you are in any dispute or a client has asked you to preserve material, keep the relevant disks out of the destruction batch until that is resolved.
Why a NAS reset is not data destruction
Deleting volumes, reinitialising the NAS or running a factory reset is useful for setting the unit up again, but it should not be treated as secure erasure. Depending on the model and options chosen, these steps can remove the storage layout and file system while leaving much of the underlying data on the disks. The same goes for a quick format of an edit drive before it goes back on the shelf.
Data on disks is properly dealt with in one of two ways:
- Overwriting, drive by drive, with a verified report for each serial number. This suits newer disks you want to reuse or sell on.
- Physical destruction by shredding or crushing, or degaussing for magnetic hard drives. This suits failed, old or very sensitive disks.
SSDs, including NAS cache drives and workstation scratch disks, store data differently from hard drives. Degaussing does not work on them, and overwriting needs the right method for flash storage. If an SSD has failed or cannot be erased and verified, destroy it. Our guide to wiping, degaussing and shredding explains the trade-offs in more detail.
Shuttle drives and freelancer drives
Portable drives are where studio data most often goes missing. A few habits help:
- Label each shuttle drive and record who has it and which project it carries.
- Ask freelancers to return studio drives at the end of a job, or to confirm in writing how they deleted your material from their own disks.
- When a project closes, gather its shuttle drives and either erase them properly for reuse or add them to the destruction batch.
- Do not put old drives in the bin or in general electrical recycling. They are not wiped there, and once they leave your hands you have no record of what happened to them.
Step 3: get a certificate you can show a client
If a client asks what happened to their footage, a certificate of destruction listing each drive by serial number is the answer they need. Check it against your disk list so that every NAS drive, cache SSD and shuttle drive is accounted for. Keep it with the project records. Our guide on what a certificate of destruction should include covers what to look for.
Data destruction for Hackney studios
We collect from studios, agencies and production companies across Hackney, from Shoreditch and Hoxton to Dalston and Hackney Wick. You can have disks erased so the hardware can be reused, or destroyed by government-approved methods, and you receive a certificate of destruction for the job. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration ZA060744. See our data destruction service in Hackney, or our hard drive disposal and recycling service if you also want the old NAS units and enclosures recycled.
To arrange it, call 020 7064 4996 or book a collection with a rough count of the drives and devices you have.