Will a Magnet Erase my PC's Hard Drive? - Let's Find Out

If I get too close to my PC's hard drive HDD with a magnet will it get damaged or destroyed?, this is something I always wondered about so I decided to try it on one of my computers and the results were both surprising and interesting.
I also try the same test on a Solid State Drive aka SSD.

I have read that old floppy disks were very easy to damage with a magnet but we don't use those anymore.

[Zukirin]

"minecraft, that should eat up some cpu" (9% CPU Usage)

[amoghsolo]

However I don't think playing minecraft is the best to see if the hard drive is working. Cause the game is already loaded on the RAM. Interesting video none the less.

[Pistolero]

The strong magnet, dont kill the disk data, but this magnet is interfere for reading head i guess.

[maksphoto]

I think what happened with the strongest magnet is that it pulled the disks up towards itself, making reading and writing impossible.

[jaymaster]

Copy files instead of playing Minecraft, it’s a tiny game it could all be cached in memory. Otherwise good experiment.

[SkyNines]

Pretty sure you're talking about the movie "The Core"

[DrHouse-zseb]

The biggest problem is the impact when putting the magnet on. This can cause a head crash

[E-virtuosEu]

There is a neodymium magnet inside a hard drive, so it should erase everything all the time if you think like this.

[darkwinter]

Modern HDDs have magnetic domains on the platter that are too small and powerfully magnetized to affect with typical permanent magnets. If you are looking to destroy the data in a way such that it positively cannot be recovered, you need to physically destroy the platters. Thermite works well for this purpose, but just putting the drive in an oven that can exceed the curie point of the media will do quite the number on the magnetic domains on the disc (even if the drive remains otherwise intact). SSDs, being more-or-less immune to static magnetic fields, would require thermite to totally destroy.

[wut]

-I can feel the hard drive working-

*Are you powered up by hard drives?*

[DJAtom]

Guy: *puts magnet on hard drive*

Guy: nothing, still working!

Drive: *0 disk usage*

[NextGeneration]

has 750gb hdd as daily driver
*sees 1tb hdd getting destroyed*
😧😨

[JovanLemon]

The only thing i am concerned about is the minecrsft version... You sure it didnt work?

[vishnuk]

The disk slowed down when you put 40lb magnet over it due to developing of eddy currents in the disk which tried to oppose its rotational motion

[Doodle]

HDDs work via magnetic coating on a ceramic or glass disk, you would need around 140 pounds of force to magnetically erase one.
SSDs work via chips that hold electrical charge, a magnet isn't going to do anything unless you're using it to smash the drive, the best way to kill an SSD would be to remove the charge or overload it.

[Theportraitdude]

Aha, the old “Rare Earth magnet while playing Minecraft in a garage” test. A classic to be sure.

[akeylawhite]

The strong magnet was likely just preventing the read head from properly moving across the platters surface and didn't effect the polarity of stored data. Now a powerful electromagnet on the other hand could invert some bits of data.

[michaelsteinbach]

Lenz's Law. Though the Aluminum platters don't attract the magnet on their own, the magnet induces a magnetic field in the platter, attracting the magnet and creating resistance (slowing the platter). Similar to how if you drop a strong magnet through an aluminum tube, it floats slowly through on it's way down. I guess the harddrive senses the slowdown and pauses activity until the motor can spin it back up to normal speed.

[stoiannicusor]

3:25 hahah, that's how my pc works

[nekophoenix]

I placed a magnet on my laptop and it stopped working RIP