I'm trying to find the most effective method for wiping multiple drives, ideally around 25-50 per day. The drives I'm working with are a mix of HDDs, SSDs, NVMe, and SAS, but I primarily deal with 2.5" HDDs and SSDs. I plan to use KillDisk since it's more affordable than Blancco. My main focus is on the hardware setup. I've considered using SATA to USB adapters, but they usually only support 2.5" drives, which isn't suitable for SAS or NVMe drives. I've looked at the destroyinator from 45 Drives, but it's out of my budget. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
6 Answers
What are your ultimate goals here? I used to wipe drives in my workshop, but it was super time and cost-intensive. Eventually, we switched to using a degausser, which is quick and simple but renders the drives unusable. We found it easier to just send the drives for destruction and keep records for compliance. We charged customers a small fee for this, and many were happy to pay for it.
You might want to consider getting some help! I have an old NUC with SATA ports. I boot it with Linux and use blkdiscard for SSDs. For PATA drives, I use a USB adapter and run shredOS. It’s a slow process, working through about 100 disks. For SSDs and NVMe that won’t wipe, I drill holes and it feels quite satisfying! If you’ve got sensitive data on SAS disks, I’d recommend commercial destruction services to be safe.
A decent computer can have 4 to 6 SATA ports. You could extend this with some PCIe to SATA cards to handle multiple drives at once. Just make sure your power supply can accommodate it, along with some extension or splitter cords.
Yeah, but the issue with SATA ports is that you have to reboot the computer whenever you swap out the drives, which can be really time-consuming, especially if any of the drives have problems.
Are you just looking to destroy the data and drives, or do you want to reuse them? If it's just about destruction, consider using a drill press to make holes through the drives. If you want to wipe them, you'll need machines that can handle multiple drives. Just remember that for different interfaces, you’ll have to get the right adapters or machines.
Sounds like a project I considered! It’s disappointing when institutions don’t see the need for low-cost hardware for secure storage wiping. But good luck! I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread for any answers others provide.
For wiping drives, check out RedKey. It's a handy tool, but I haven't used it for large-scale operations.
I'm actually planning to reuse the drives in second-hand computers, which is why I need them to be wiped and not destroyed.