Data center decommissioning companies

Survey and scope, a serialized inventory of every asset, power-down and de-racking, data sanitization on site or at the vendor’s plant, tracked transport, audit on arrival, resale of working gear, recycling of the rest, then certificates of destruction and recycling with a final report. Iron Mountain runs the same seven stages, from assessment to documentation (Iron Mountain). Full-scope crews also strip racks, PDUs, UPS, cabling and cooling plant: Quantum disconnects HVAC and cooling and removes raised floor (Quantum), and ICT Reverse removes racks, PDUs and cabling after power-down (ICT Reverse). The decommissioning checklist puts every step on one work order.

R2v3 or e-Stewards for reuse and recycling, NAID AAA for data destruction, ISO 27001 for information security, and in the UK, ADISA plus an Environment Agency AATF permit for WEEE. Check every badge in the certifier’s own registry before you sign: e-Stewards current processors, the SERI R2 directory and the i-SIGMA NAID AAA directory. We checked both e-Stewards and NAID AAA registries on 9 Nov 2026. Apto Solutions, Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations, ERI, Iron Mountain (through Regency Technologies and Wisetek) and SEAM are on the e-Stewards list, and every company here that states NAID AAA is in the i-SIGMA directory. Every other certification in the table is as the company states it, and the table labels which is which.

NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2, published September 2025. It supersedes Rev. 1 from December 2014 and keeps three sanitization levels: Clear, Purge and Destroy, matched to how sensitive the media is. Write “800-88 Rev. 2” into the contract. SK tes already cites Rev. 2 alongside IEEE 2883-2022 for modern SSDs (SK tes). DoD 5220.22-M overwriting is a legacy method; SEAM says so on its own certifications page (SEAM).

Yes, whenever a drive must never leave the building intact, which regulated sectors and federal buyers often require. 19 of the 30 companies here shred, crush or degauss at your site. SK tes shreds on site to a particle size you specify (SK tes); Sims runs DIN 66399 shredding down to 2 mm for SSDs at Gustavsburg/Frankfurt (Sims); Securis brings mobile wiping, shredding and degaussing to federal sites (Securis).

Every provider quotes per project, scoped on asset count, media mix, number of sites, access limits and the reports you need (Securis). Resale of working servers, storage and GPUs offsets the bill, and buyback or revenue share returns cash. Iron Mountain cites a hyperscale job of 297 racks and 121,893 drives that returned $4.4M to the client (Iron Mountain). SK tes cleared 400+ racks and 80,000 data-bearing assets across two sites in weeks (SK tes). 8 companies here buy back GPU and AI servers.

8 of the 30 list relocation: CXtec, ERI, Evernex, ICT Reverse, Park Place Technologies, Procurri, Restore Technology and TechReset. One crew that moves the live kit and retires the rest keeps a single chain of custody across both jobs. See them side by side on data center relocation services.