Suggestions to quickly wipe 20 pc hdds?

[davidd]

We have a load of old dell desktops (5 year old i7 16gb ram 512ssd that we no longer need.

The go for about £100 on ebay but will need wiping.

Anyone got any recommendations for a simple bootable USB that will do it?

Many thanks

D

[danpalmer1993]

I've always used either DBAN free for personal use or Blancco for enterprise use where a certificate is needed.

Edit - That's for HDD, not SSD.

Edited by danpalmer1993 on Monday 27th March 11:15

[TonyRPH]

There's no quick way to do this securely.

I recently did this myself (30 drives, 40G to 500G in size) - took me several days.

I used Linux (just a bootable USB stick) and 'dd'

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

There's a product called Blancco which from memory is quick, but not cheap.

EDIT Just noticed the OP said SSD - DO NOT WIPE SSDs - it will destroy them. A simple full format will usually suffice.

[Road2Ruin]

I am amazed ebay is paying so much for a second hand drive. SSDs are dirt cheap now.

[davidd]

Road2Ruin said:

I am amazed ebay is paying so much for a second hand drive. SSDs are dirt cheap now.

That's for the base unit, saying that I've not looked at sold prices.

Looking at the faff of doing it myself I think we are just going to get a recycling co to take them and certify they are clean.

Thanks for everyones help.

D

[maffski]

Is this 'there's nothing important on them, they just need to be blank for disposal'? In which case a base format is fine.

Or is it 'they must be unrecoverable under all circumstances'? In which case take them out and smash them with a hammer.

SSD's can only be fully erased by specialist software. Your Dell BIOS may support this - https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000146892...

Alternatively the manufacturer of the SSD might offer a utility, or Parted Magic supports SSD secure erase - https://partedmagic.com/ for a small cost.

However if were talking about the banking details for a multi million pound company even secure erase isn't a certainty at the chip level and so a big hammer or a drill through the middle of every chip is best.

[98elise]

Road2Ruin said:

I am amazed ebay is paying so much for a second hand drive. SSDs are dirt cheap now.

Surely he is selling the desktops, not just the drives out of them?

[Road2Ruin]

98elise said:

Road2Ruin said:

I am amazed ebay is paying so much for a second hand drive. SSDs are dirt cheap now.

Surely he is selling the desktops, not just the drives out of them?

you are probably right.

[colin79666]

SSDs should support secure erase. That nukes a SSD in a few seconds.

Parted Magic can do it, along with dd if you have mechanical drives. Ignore the subscription, just pay $15 for a one off version.
https://partedmagic.com/secure-erase/

[Strocky]

davidd said:

We have a load of old dell desktops (5 year old i7 16gb ram 512ssd that we no longer need.

The go for about £100 on ebay but will need wiping.

Anyone got any recommendations for a simple bootable USB that will do it?

Many thanks

D

Microwave, 10 seconds and all data gone, thank me later