Erase hard drives
 

I used to joke that a hammer is the best way and have actually done it more than a few times.

I think I have a much better way now. Get one of these. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-pla-_-NA-_-NA if there is enough ferrous metal in the drive it ought to destroy it.


If you do attempt such a thing, do it in a safe place and away from people and pets and have an extension cord to pull to stop it. It might put out some toxic smoke.

The hammer is cheaper....;)

Last time I did this "final erase", I removed all the magnets first----they must be good for something......

I used to LOVE the old big scsi drives. I still have some of the big magnets.

The best way is to do it via sofware, or take the platters out and run a big magnet over them. Then at your choice you can smash them with a sledgehammer.

The worst thing I hate about using software to securely erase hard drives is it takes too long especially when you need to do multiple passes.

This is how I erase/destroy hard drives. I do a dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdx on the drive one time. Then I remove the hard drive and disassemble it. I then destroy the pieces and platters as much as I could.

Using 'wipe' is much faster than /dev/urandom. If you are going to take it apart anyway, there's no need to wipe it with software, instead use a powerful magnet on the platters themselves.

I was thinking of upgrading to SSD drives in the future. Having a hard drive in today's world is like using a record player. it's old technology. However, after looking at these SSD drives, the prices are too high for so little storage.

Sooo, I will be stuck with my so called record player for a while.

Maybe I'll try the magnet trick in the future or add it to my current way of destroying platters i.e drilling holes into the platters :)

Yep, the ssd's are still high but dropping fast as well as getting bigger and faster so you have to figure that too. They are not immune to needing special erase also. Data can get locked inside them.

I know, SLC SSD drives are almost twice or triple the price of the MLC types with the same amount of storage.

Very interesting.

PS: I found this link on youtube. It's a basic overview of SSD drives i.e types, terms, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpVyn2izhRo

Yes, they require special methods to erase data ... and who knows how secure they really are. I think this is why they are pushing them and raising the prices of HDDs. [/end of conspiracy theory]

A BFH should work equally well with SSD's or HDD's if the proper technique is judiciously applied. ;) Not as eloquent as sundialsvcs's suggestion (I like how you think...) but you shouldn't need a sunblock with a SPF 37,000,000,000 either. :D Perhaps the ABL now that it's not being used...

If you don't set a large blocksize of course it's slow.

Actually, I do -- but I forgot to add it. I use bs=1M. I sometimes use DBan only when I want to wipe it and give the drive to someone else or reuse the drive in the future.

Either way, both take a considerable about of time. Which is why I do this at night and hope it'll be done when I wake up in the morning.

Again using wipe is much faster than /dev/urandom, and is just as secure.

OK, I'll try wipe on my next hard drive wiping in the future.

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Why not simply remove the platters from the hard drive, use c-clamps to hold the platters to a work bench, and use a belt sander on the platters? Lot easier than using dd command and then taking things apart anyway.