Meh
Look the premise here is that you want to blow the disks quickly because of certain government agency is going to be coming through the door. So the disk has to be usable and then while its being used... you need to destroy it.
Using an encrypted drive, a small amount of det cord will be enough or a small shaped charge... It doesn't matter if some of the platters are readable. How do you decrypt a chunk of data if you don't know the start or end of the record. At the same time... as other readers point out... there's alternatives that would be corrosive to the drives... what happens if you have a shaped charge that vaporizes a different metal that coats and melts the surface of the drives? I mean lets face it... the surface of the drives are more fragile than the drive case.
But what do I know?
I'm all for the SSD and RRAM which I think a high voltage pop would be enough to fry the machines and storage.
BTW isn't Thermite an explosive? So if you're going to risk the charge of handling explosives which could also label you a terrorist, why worry about destroying the rest of the server too?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
