so apparently magnets can sometimes be bad for electronics, eg they can corrupt hard drive data or damage your phone. but they’re also used all the time in electronics (one that comes to mind right now is the magnetic charging port for my phone)
In: Technology
Magnets are not nearly as bad for electronics as you might think. Moving a very powerful magnet quickly very close to a long wire can mess with the electronics, but a large enough magnet is hard to come by.
The real risk is with *specifically* magnetic memory, which is not used on small devices like phones. In regular computers it is pretty deep inside, so you’d have a hard time getting a magnet near it.
Magnets can wipe out magnetic media (like spinning hard drives or floppy disks). So, devices which are intended for use with magnets simply…don’t use magnetic media.
Problem solved!
It takes a very strong magnet to cause damage, which most people don’t have handy. Simply having a magnet near something electronic means relatively little. When the magnet moves, it can induce a small amount of electricity in the wires of the device. But the point is it is very small.
The charging port is magnetic on your phone/laptop, but not only is it a rather weak magnet, it is far away from anything remotely sensitive and most importantly, it doesn’t move. While you move the phone/laptop around, the magnet and electronics move together and so nothing happens.
Hard drives – the kind that spin – might be more at risk for data damage and loss since magnetism is also how data is stored on the platters. But if you’ve ever opened a hard drive, you’ll find some powerful magnets already inside it. So a magnet to destroy a hard drive needs to be stronger than those. Breaking Bad had it right – a super-electromagnet will do the job. Powering it, however, takes a hell of a power supply.
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