data center decommissioning

Achieve circular data center excellence

No matter how large or varied your data center footprint is, Iron Mountain has the experience, physical resources, and global presence to support you with secure and sustainable asset lifecycle management services. We operate in the most complex environments all over the world across owned sites, co-location facilities, and small points of presence.

Our large breadth of services ensure strict security and audit compliance, while maximizing value recovery from retired hardware. Iron Mountain ensures unmatched data security through a secure chain of custody that tracks IT assets at every stage of their journey.

Rack decommissioning

ITAD services for data centers

Services for data centers

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Frequently asked questions

What is data center IT asset disposition?
Data center IT asset disposition (ITAD) is the secure process of retiring, sanitizing, reusing, remarketing, recycling or disposing of IT equipment at the end of its lifecycle while protecting data and supporting compliance.
What assets are included in a data center decommissioning project?
Projects typically include servers, storage systems, networking equipment, racks, switches, firewalls, cables, power distribution units (PDUs), UPS systems and other supporting IT infrastructure.
How do ITAD services support data center decommissioning?
ITAD services securely remove, track, sanitize, transport, remarket, recycle or dispose of retired IT assets while providing chain of custody and compliance documentation.
How is data destroyed during data center decommissioning?
Data is securely destroyed using certified sanitization methods, such as software-based erasure or physical destruction of storage media, depending on security and compliance requirements.
What happens to retired servers and storage devices?
Assets are evaluated for reuse or resale whenever possible. Equipment that cannot be repurposed is responsibly recycled or disposed of in accordance with environmental regulations.
How can organizations maximize value recovery during a decommissioning project?
Working with an experienced ITAD provider helps identify assets with resale value, enabling refurbishment and remarketing to offset decommissioning costs.

Decom workflow diagram

Data center ITAD & decommissioning step-by-step

A deeper dive into Iron Mountain’s data center decommissioning process.

According to Gartner®,

The three most important tasks to execute correctly, and to which ITAD executives should pay special attention, are transportation logistics/chain of custody, data sanitization, and recycling. These three tasks represent the greatest risk in the ITAD process, and they should be handled by an experienced, well-vetted ITAD service provider.

Iron Mountain is recognized as a Representative Provider in the Gartner Market Guide for IT Asset Disposition for the fifth time consecutively.

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* Gartner Market Guide for IT Asset Disposition; Rob Schafer, Christopher Dixon, Autumn Stanish; February 24, 2026 GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Customer success story: hyperscale services provider

Challenge

Arrival of new servers and storage, which were rapidly losing value while waiting for installation, placed a premium on accelerating decommissioning for this hyperscale services provider. While the nature of the business mandated maximum data security, the provider needed return on investment from asset remarketing to help fund increased tech refreshes.

Solution

Iron Mountain’s custom data center decommissioning services safely, securely, and efficiently executed comprehensive data erasure, uninstallation, removal, and secure shipment of equipment to state-of-the-art processing facilities for remarketing.

Results

All racks were data-free and ready to be wheeled out four days after the project started. All assets were removed from the client site within 14 days. Remarketing the retired assets netted the client several million dollars, helping to close budget gaps.

By the numbers

  • 297
    racks
  • 121,893
    drives (HDD, SSD, flash cards)
  • 100%
    of drives erased or securely destroyed, with certification
  • 4 days
    data elimination complete
  • 2 weeks
    all racks removed
  • $4.4M
    client proceeds

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