Usually my process is very… hammer and drill related - but I have a family member who is interested in taking my latest batch of hard drives after I upgraded.
What are the best (linux) tools for the process? I’d like to run some tests to make sure they’re good first and also do a full zero out of any data. (Used to be a raid if that matters)
Edit: Thanks all, process is officially started, will probably run for quite a while. Appreciate the advice!
‘dd’ works, but I prefer ‘shred’. It does a DoD multi-pass shred by default, so I usually use ‘shred -vn1z /dev/(drive)’. That gives output, does a one-pass random write followed by one-pass zero of the disk. More than that just wastes time, and this kinda thing takes hours on large spinners. I also use ‘smartmontools’ to run SMART tests against my drives regularly to check their health.
Just a heads up that’s not a thing anymore (since 2006 when the 1995 revision was superseded), except that you have to physically destroy it or whatever the CSA’s policy that owns it says to do. Generally the direction for an HDD would be, if available, use a degaussing rod and then regardless, you must shred it in an approved HDD shredder (a physical shredder) or incinerate it. For an SSD, it would be to incinerate it.
Now 5220.22-M (the 1995 version) that most commercial and some not-so-commercial software referenced as the “DOD Standard” doesn’t even exist anymore. It is now 32 CFR Part 117 of Title 32 and with respect to sanitization is §117.18 (b)(2).