I'm taking the opportunity of the stay-in-place order to do some much needed spring cleaning.

As I'm sure many of us do, I have over the years gone through quite a few computers, external HDs, etc. Currently in my "junk pile" are probably half a dozen old HDDs pulled out of computers.

My concern is that there might be sensitive data (SSNs, account information, etc) on some or all of these. I don't have the time or inclination to hook them up to a computer to "wipe" them and the drives are of no value to me anyway. My question is how can I destroy them so that any data can't be recovered?

I know I can physically smash them with an axe or sledge hammer but I was hoping for something less messy. So here' my question:

What if I just immersed them all in a bucket of salt water and let them sit in the bucket for a week or so? Wouldn't that likely corrode the internals so much that for all practical purposes no data could be recovered? Then I could just throw them away or put them in an electronic recycle bucket.