Yes, this is true—or at least it's a real incident that went viral recently (around mid-February 2026, based on the reports).
The image and caption comes from a post originally shared on Reddit (in r/LinusTechTips and similar subs), where someone posted photos of a drilled 2.5-inch SATA SSD. The drill went straight through the metal/plastic casing but completely missed the actual PCB (printed circuit board) and NAND flash chips, which were clustered toward one end near the SATA connector. The hole was basically in empty space inside the enclosure.
Multiple tech sites covered it shortly after:
This happens because many 2.5-inch SATA SSDs have much smaller PCBs than the full size of the old HDD-style enclosure—they're often only about 1/3 to 1/2 the length, bunched up near the connector end. Drilling dead-center (like people often do with old spinning hard drives) frequently misses everything important.
Moral of the story: Drilling can work to destroy data on SSDs, but you need to:
Multiple tech sites covered it shortly after:
- Tom's Hardware ran an article titled something like "SATA SSD cheated death from failed attempt at data destruction with a drill"
- TechSpot called it "IT worker tried to destroy an SSD with a drill and failed spectacularly"
- Wccftech (the source in your caption) posted about it on social media with very similar wording
This happens because many 2.5-inch SATA SSDs have much smaller PCBs than the full size of the old HDD-style enclosure—they're often only about 1/3 to 1/2 the length, bunched up near the connector end. Drilling dead-center (like people often do with old spinning hard drives) frequently misses everything important.
Moral of the story: Drilling can work to destroy data on SSDs, but you need to:
- Target the actual chip area (usually near the SATA/power end)
- Make multiple holes, or
- Open it up first to see where the NAND/PCB actually is
