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  1. #1
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    Old hard drives & dedicated server preparation

    Just curious how most handle these situations.

    1. When renting a dedicated server to a new customer, what steps do take in regards to the hard drives from the last customer?

    Do you zero-write the drives or just reformat the drive and put the responsibility on the previous customer to make sure their sensitive data was removed prior?

    2. We have a bunch of old 500GB drives that we most likely will never use again. From what I see, these drives don't go for very much and the time involved in zero-writing them is hours per drive. How does your company usually dispose of old drives? Do you wipe them and try to resell them, deliver them to a e-recycler, or degauss them? It seems like degaussing is the most time efficient for lots of hard drives, but AFAIK it destroys the hard drive so it doesn't seem very effective to me if the drive is still usable.

  2. #2
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    you can sell old batches of drives on ebay for some extra $$$ 500 gig drives still go for ok $$

    yes you should overwrite the drives before selling them.

  3. #3
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    I don't know, I saw most of them going for about $30 free shipping for used 500gb drives, so after fees and shipping costs, it'd only be about $20/drive.

    I'm more looking to see how others in the industry are disposing of their used drives, or preparing used drives for new dedicated server customers.

  4. #4
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    I think it depends on your privacy policies and terms and conditions, some company will just dispose of old HDD's as they are relatively cheap, especially for a 500GB one, and some do re-use them, but it all depends on what the contract between host and client is.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    1. When renting a dedicated server to a new customer, what steps do take in regards to the hard drives from the last customer?

    Do you zero-write the drives or just reformat the drive and put the responsibility on the previous customer to make sure their sensitive data was removed prior?
    Network boot sysresccd and zero it out from there.
    Prefer to use a command like "badblocks -fwst 0 /dev/sda" instead of plain dd so that it also tests the drive.

  6. #6
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    Zero write is the best way... it is sure to wipe out RAID metadata which can cause issues with later installs (even if reformatted) and allows hot swapping into degraded arrays without intervention.
    Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
    Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by FastServ View Post
    Zero write is the best way... it is sure to wipe out RAID metadata which can cause issues with later installs (even if reformatted) and allows hot swapping into degraded arrays without intervention.

    Do you perform this before re-selling a dedicated server or do you leave this responsibility to the client?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    Do you perform this before re-selling a dedicated server or do you leave this responsibility to the client?
    It's part of our deployment scripts, so yes, before every server goes out to client.
    Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
    Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by FastServ View Post
    It's part of our deployment scripts, so yes, before every server goes out to client.

    Great, thanks for your input. I can't wait to start doing this on 4TB+ drives, it must take about 16 hours

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    Great, thanks for your input. I can't wait to start doing this on 4TB+ drives, it must take about 16 hours
    With less security (raw data will remain, but disk will appear zeroized along with wiping any existing metadata) you can use something like this to save time:

    Code:
    #!/bin/sh
    YOUR_DEV=$1
    echo "Killing metadata (if any) on ${YOUR_DEV}"
    dd if=/dev/zero of=$YOUR_DEV bs=512 seek=$(( $(blockdev --getsz ${YOUR_DEV}) - 1024 )) count=1024
    echo "Killing 1st gig of space and partition tables on ${YOUR_DEV}"
    dd if=/dev/zero of=${YOUR_DEV} bs=1M count=1K conv=fdatasync
    Then,

    Code:
    erase.sh /dev/sda
    Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
    Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by FastServ View Post
    With less security (raw data will remain, but disk will appear zeroized along with wiping any existing metadata) you can use something like this to save time:
    Very interesting. So I take it, from that script, the metadata is stored at the end of the drive?

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    Very interesting. So I take it, from that script, the metadata is stored at the end of the drive?
    Yes, RAID metadata is towards the end. Unless you zero it, you may have issues -- OS seems to install fine but fails to boot afterwards...
    Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
    Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters

  13. #13
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    zero-writing is very important. But most of popular hosting company's are just re reloading the OS. They don't want do zero-writing bcz it will take much time.
    Last edited by bukzrock; 02-09-2014 at 02:33 PM.

  14. #14
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    As part of the deployment process wipe the drive, and perform a full test on them.

    However the majority of our servers are sold onto a hardware reseller once the client leaves, as their normally out dated by then, same applies though full delete of all the data.
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  15. #15
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    You can sell your all 500 GB Hard Drives over the Internet. Still there is have a god demand for 500 GB Drives. How many hard drives you have? Is there have any bad sectors ?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by bukzrock View Post
    You can sell your all 500 GB Hard Drives over the Internet. Still there is have a god demand for 500 GB Drives. How many hard drives you have? Is there have any bad sectors ?

    I would say I have about 40 old hard drives in total of various sizes, brands, etc but some are dead and others I haven't gone through and done any testing on.

  17. #17
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    Do you have any idea to sell those drives ?



    Quote Originally Posted by devonblzx View Post
    I would say I have about 40 old hard drives in total of various sizes, brands, etc but some are dead and others I haven't gone through and done any testing on.

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