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Diamond
Asked: 2015-11-07 13:08:13 +0800 CST

Erasing Server RAID Hard disks (SAS and SATA) for decomissioning

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We are in a process of decomissioning a handfull of Fujitsu Primergy Servers. Before of course, we want to make sure that the hard disks are completely wiped out. But it seems there is no way to format hard disks one by one as the RAID array controller is not detected by utilites such as DBAN. I have already deleted and recreated RAID. My question is, is that enough?

Some points to note:

  • These are leased servers, so physical destruction of the hard disks is not an option.

  • I have tried to configure JBOD for the controller, but seems it doesn't support it.

  • Latest Ubuntu, Debian, Gparted or DBAN don't recognize the controller or disks.

raid

4 Answers

  1. Finally I got the solution. According to Fujitsu "LSI Logic MegaRAID SCSI WebBIOS Configuration Utility" User's guide, virtual disk initialization can be a good start to remove data from the disk:

    1.4.5.1 Initialization

    The Initialize option initializes the selected logical drive by writing zeroes to the entire volume (if fast initialization is selected, zeroes are written to the first sector only).

    Secondly, I was also able to detect the RAID using the suggestion here: DBAN the Drives Connected to a RAID Controller

    The trick is to Configure each disk independently as RAID0. After configuring the RAID and using the latest DBAN(dban-2.3.0_i586) to boot from CD, I could run DBAN on the disk. Thanks to everyone for their time and support!

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  2. Best Answer

    It all depends on how secure you want/need to be. Recreating the RAID won't do much to your data other than re-compute the parity bits (assuming RAID 5 or 6) but you could re-create the RAID as a different level and then DBAN the whole thing. That would be good enough for most non-DOD applications.

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  3. depends how far you want to go with the data protection. A) Destroy the Disks, I mean a big big hammer and destroy the disks really good. B) Delete the data with dd with random or zero bits... C) Using a tool (secure Delete). http://linoxide.com/security/delete-files-permanatly-linux/

    But, deleting the RAID will not delete the data, actually, if you create the RAID again with the disks in the right order, you will be able to recover the data like nothing happened.

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  4. Take out the disks, connect them to another server (or just any computer) with a supported controller and wipe them out.

    If they are mounted on hot-swap trays specific to that server model, just take them out from the trays and mount them in the trays of the other server; or just place them on a flat surface and use some cables to connect them to the controller.

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