Re: [CentOS] erase disk

Paul Heinlein heinlein@madboa.com wrote:

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013, SilverTip257 wrote:

...

Eh, I don't really think dban is necessary. Probably more than an fdisk and creating a file system is overkill.

My policies are work are simple:

1. Re-use by same employee: stick with filesystem tools.
2. Re-use within company: single-pass zeroing of disk.
3. Retirement of asset: three-pass of random bits.

I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed, I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task, however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads out the door.

You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it, right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.

A fairly simple solution is

dd if=/dev/zero (or urandom) of=/dev/(device)