Bulk SATA Data Erase

Cost Effective Bulk SATA Data Erase with NDW

NDW - Network Data Wiping software solution is capable of erasing data from 1000s of SATA HDDs simultaneously. All types of SATA 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM and 10000 RPM drives are supported.

Since NDW is a network PXE based data erase solution, which means multiple workstations equipped with multiple SATA HDDs can be used to erase data simultaneously. Most system's main boards provide 4 or 6 SATA ports. Let's assume we want to erase 1000 SATA hard drives using standard desktop machines, and each machine provides only 4 sata ports. We need will 250 machines to concurrently erase 1000 SATA hard drive. 250 machines is a very large quantity, we will also need 251 gigabit network ports to connect these machines, take into account the power usage, monitors, keyboards and space required to accommodate these machine. Erasing and wiping data from large number of SATA hard drives in manner mentioned above is simply not feasible. However, there is a solution to this problem which decreases the space footprint, power usage and space. Read the next section for details.

Solution 1 (Bulk SATA HDD data wiping)

If you want to wipe data from 1000s of HDDs daily, we recommend building a custom data wiping lab. In order to increase SATA device count per system, build a data wiping lab. In this lab you can install custom built machines. Each machine can be equipped with multiple SATA port. For example Chia-D32H-D4 system mainboard provides 32 builtin SATA ports. To increase the capacity even more you can add additional PCI-E or PCI 32 port SATA card.

See below this motherboard is equipped with 32 SATA ports.

Additionally this motherboard is equipped with x16 PCIe slot which means SATA capacity can be increase to 64 drives per system. by installing additional PCI sata controller card. (The card below provide additinal 32 x SATA ports)

You will also have to take into account the power demand for 32x32=64 hard disk drives and may have to install additional power supplies to meet the power demand to spin up all 64 drives.

Using this solution gives you capacity of 64 HDDs per system, so this means you will need only 16 systems to wipe data from 64x16=1024 SATA hard disk drives simultaneously.

Important note: When purchasing SATA HBA card, make sure these are JBOD or IT mode card, which has the capability to present each drive to the OS without raid configuration. Most HBA SAS/SATA controllers can be flashed to provide either RAID or JBOD functionality. Kindly check this capability with HBA card manufacturer before purchase.

Solution 2 (SATA/SAS Disk Arrays with JBOD HBA)

2nd solution is to use SATA / SAS disk arrays and use with JBOD HBA card. There are large number of disk array manufacturers such as HP, Dell, EMC, CHIA, NetApp, Alnico, supermicro and etc,. The benefit of using disk array with JBOD HBA is that you can daisy chain arrays to increase the HDD count per system. For example you can use EMC expansion array each with 24 disk capacity and daisy chain with additional 10 arrays. This gives you capacity of 240 hard disk drives per system.

By using this method, you can install multiple Host machines each with multiple disk arrays. For example 10 x host machines each with 8 x 24 disks array, this will give you capacity of 192 disks per machine, So using above configuration with 10 systems that would be 10 x 192 = 1920 disks with 10 systems.

All you have to do is to boot each host machine into Network PXE and data erasing and data wiping will automatically begin.

You can also monitor the data wiping progress of all storage devices from one central web based management portal.

Important note: If you are connecting disk arrays in daisy chain, the data wiping throughput may become slower because the bus speed / bandwidth between host machine HBA and disk arrays is limited. Also the CPU usage on host machine may increase. We recommend you try different configuration and settle for one that best suites your needs.

HDD1 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 74.99% done
HDD2 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 75.99% done
HDD3 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 76.99% done
HDD4 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 76.99% done
HDD5 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 77.99% done
HDD6 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 78.99% done
HDD7 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 79.99% done
HDD8 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 80.99% done
HDD9 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 81.99% done
HDD10 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 82.99% done
HDD11 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 83.99% done
HDD12 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 83.99% done
HDD13 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 84.99% done
HDD14 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 85.99% done
HDD15 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 86.99% done
HDD16 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 87.99% done
HDD17 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 88.99% done
HDD18 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 88.99% done
HDD19 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 89.99% done
HDD20 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 90.99% done
HDD21 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 91.99% done
HDD22 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 92.99% done
HDD23 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 92.99% done
HDD24 - NetApp  - HDD_model - HDD_Serial_Number - Converting to 512 Bytes Sector Size: 93.99% done

If drives are non-compliant sector size such as 520, 524, 520 or 1024 and so on. Conversion process will continue for all those drives which are non-compliant. The sector conversion progress displayed above is just an example, this progress on your host machine will display actual HDD Vendor name, HDD Model Number and HDD serial number.

Once this conversion process is completed data has already been erased because of the conversion process. When drives sector size is convert, HDD's entire geometry is changed bit by bite, each sector is rewritten and during this process stored data is discarded. But NDW will continue to wipe data using usual methods. You may see following on your screen.

Above displayed image is used for illustration purposes, display on your host machine may differ. But it would look like more or less the same.

While NDW data erasure is continuing to run, you can view this progress from management console machine by browsing to http://192.168.1.253

You may click widgets above to drill down to each machine and view progress for each machine from central management console.

You may click widgets above to drill down to each Hard Disk Drive to view progress for each machine, and on the next page can drill down further into each hard disk drive to view progress as well as performance data related to each hard disk drive.

Important Note If you wish to drill down further into each Hard Disk Drive, you can do so by clicking the HDD widget, this will open up another page which will show detailed information related to that specific Hard Disk Drive. See below an example.

When data wiping has completed its run, labels for each hard disk drive will automatically be printed. See below.

While data wiping is continuing to run or when the data wiping has finished, you can view the reports and access the data erasure certificate from the web management portal. See below example.

To learn how to access reports, graphs, certificates and other management related tasks kindly refer to the user guide.

Should you have questions and need support kindly contact email: support (@) greatengland.co.uk