Re: [Nolug] Why geeks don't wipe hard drives...

On 03/24/2011 03:29 PM, Lee S. Whatley wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2011, Ron Johnson wrote:
>> But (most of) the devices still work. I'm just trying to consolidate...
>
> If *you* are still planning to use the drives then you don't need to
> wipe them, just do a mkfs on top of the old stuff.
>

That's pretty obvious...

> If you are planning on selling them or giving them away, then a 1 pass
> wipe isn't really protecting your data from anything...you're gonna need
> to spend waay more than 3 hours to do a "secure" wipe ;)

And that's a myth.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html#Epilogue

Read the further epilogue: '"A good scrubbing with random data will do
about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is still
true now.'

So, a single pass writing random data is all that's necessary.

-- 
"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure
the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally
corrupt."
Samuel Adams, essay in The Public Advertiser, 1749
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