I get a considerable amount of pleasure from throwing the countless AOL discs I receive in the mail through the Fellowes shredder I have in my office. Unfortunately, this creates a huge pile of plastic shards and allows the organic dye coating the discs to escape and possibly cause environmental damage. Plextor aims to solve the problem with its standalone PlexEraser PX-OE100E drive. Designed for industries such as finance, government/military and research and large corporations with sensitive information, the $249 device uses a laser beam to destroy all data stored on a disc and works with eight types of disc formats in both 12cm and 8cm sizes. It might not be as satisfying as tossing them through a shredder or as fast since it takes about three minutes to destroy a single disc, but at least it leaves them ready to recycle and won’t help create three-eyed fish.
Plextor PlexEraser PX-OE100E drive [product page]