This chemical-free process turns retired hard drives into reusable materials, reducing landfill waste and supporting domestic supply chains for critical rare earth elements

Chemical-free recycling supports U.S. supply chains and cuts landfill waste
Recovered materials support electric cars, wind power, and advanced electronics manufacturing
Sustainable end-of-life plan redefines future for storage in U.S. data centers

A new pilot program from Microsoft and Western Digital has demonstrated a novel method of recycling rare earth elements (REEs) from decommissioned hard disk drives.

The initiative, developed in collaboration with Critical Materials Recycling (CMR) and PedalPoint Recycling, successfully recovered nearly 90% of rare earth oxides and around 80% of the total feedstock mass from end-of-life drives and related components.

Using materials sourced from Microsoft’s U.S.-based data centers, the project processed approximately 50,000 pounds of shredded HDDs and mountings, converting them into high-purity elemental materials. These can now be reused across key sectors such as electric vehicles, wind energy, and advanced computing.

Old HDDs now have more value

The project employs an acid-free, environmentally friendly recycling process that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 95% compared to conventional mining and refining.

This approach not only recovers rare earths like neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, which are essential for HDD magnetic systems, but also extracts valuable metals including copper, aluminum, steel, and gold, feeding them back into the U.S. supply chain. It shows that even external hard drives can have an eco-friendly second life.

Despite the critical role of rare earths in cloud infrastructure, current domestic recycling efforts in the U.S. recover less than 10% of these materials.

Meanwhile, over 85% of global REE production remains concentrated overseas, but this pilot aims to change that, offering a scalable, domestic solution that reduces landfill waste, enhances supply chain resilience, and lowers dependence on foreign sources.

“This is a tremendous effort by all parties involved. This pilot program has shown that sustainable and economically viable end-of-life (EOL) management for HDDs is achievable,” said Chuck Graham, corporate VP of cloud sourcing, supply chain, sustainability, and security at Microsoft.

Acid-free dissolution recycling (ADR), a technology developed at the Critical Materials Innovation (CMI) Hub, was central to this achievement.

“This project is significant because HDD feedstock will continue to grow globally as AI continues to drive the demand for HDD data storage,” said Tom Lograsso, director of CMI.

Via StorageNewsletter