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

Question

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.

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

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!

Comments

[joeqwerty]

How about removing the HDD's and physically destroying them?

[Diamond]

@joeqwerty These are leased servers, can't destroy them physically. Otherwise I would have happily done it.

[Andrew Henle]

If your can't recognize the controller or disks, how did your data get on the drives in the first place?

[Diamond]

@AndrewHenle, well of course, you can install supported OS using Serverview Installation manager. But then again, it doesn't solve my problem.

[Andrew Henle]

@bangal How does installing what's apparently the only software that allows you to access the disks not solve your problem? Solving your problems requires you to access the disks, doesn't it? You can't get to the disks without installing the software, and you have to get to the disks to solve your problem. Maybe you can remove the disks and put them in another server and access them there?

[Diamond]

@AndrewHenle, I need to access the disks, but the raw, single disks, without RAID. An OS, like Windows Server or Red Hat Enterprise, get access only to the virtual disks, created with RAID. That doesn't solve my problem. What I can do is, get to the RAID configurator, delete and reconfigure it. I have done it already. The question is, is that enough.

[Diamond]

@AndrewHenle, I don't know if you have some real experience with Fujitsu Primergy Servers or similar Server hardware. If you or someone do have, and have been in such situation, then their experience can be of real help to me.

[Diamond]

Well, I have created different level of RAID but with DBAN no success. It doesn't recognize the disks. It's just frustrating there are no such tools from the Server Manufacturer. My question is, how can I get access to each disk to format it.

[Diamond]

Whenever I create new RAID, it says, all data will be lost. Is that not true?

[user3150166]

I would try a couple linux live CDs ... see if they detect the RAID disks. If so, then use the dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda trick and wait a couple days.

[kasperd]

The hammer may be useful if you need to blow off some steam. But it isn't a very secure method for wiping data. Besides the question clearly stated: physical destruction of the hard disks is not an option.

[David King]

@bangal Does DBAN recognize the RAID as a whole? You don't need to wipe each drive if you can just wipe the whole RAID.

[Diamond]

@DavidKing, sadly not. But I'm still looking for ways that DBAN can see it. I have found some hints, going to try next.