Results 1 to 17 of 17
-
02-08-2014, 04:02 PM #1Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
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.
-
02-08-2014, 04:49 PM #2Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2003
- Location
- chicago
- Posts
- 1,781
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.
-
02-08-2014, 06:48 PM #3Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
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.
-
02-08-2014, 07:07 PM #4Junior Guru Wannabe
- Join Date
- Sep 2013
- Posts
- 56
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.
-
02-08-2014, 07:16 PM #5Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Posts
- 569
Maxnet
Offering automated dedicated server provisioning software
-
02-09-2014, 12:56 PM #6Randy
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Ashburn VA, San Diego CA
- Posts
- 4,615
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
-
02-09-2014, 12:57 PM #7Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
-
02-09-2014, 01:03 PM #8Randy
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Ashburn VA, San Diego CA
- Posts
- 4,615
Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters
-
02-09-2014, 01:08 PM #9Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
-
02-09-2014, 01:11 PM #10Randy
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Ashburn VA, San Diego CA
- Posts
- 4,615
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
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
-
02-09-2014, 01:20 PM #11Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
-
02-09-2014, 01:22 PM #12Randy
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Ashburn VA, San Diego CA
- Posts
- 4,615
Fast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters
-
02-09-2014, 02:27 PM #13Disabled
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Florida
- Posts
- 466
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.
-
02-09-2014, 02:30 PM #14Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Posts
- 3,531
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.BotWars.io - Code the AI of your Battle Bot!
-
02-09-2014, 02:31 PM #15Disabled
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Florida
- Posts
- 466
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 ?
-
02-09-2014, 02:38 PM #16Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,944
-
02-09-2014, 04:38 PM #17Disabled
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Florida
- Posts
- 466
Similar Threads
-
Choices of hard drives for server
By uRDeSIRE in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and NetworksReplies: 33Last Post: 12-09-2013, 07:07 AM -
7.2k Hard Drives for your server...
By HyperVMart in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and NetworksReplies: 12Last Post: 05-03-2013, 02:57 PM -
do you delete / zero fill / ? hard drives when giving up a dedicated server
By panopticon in forum Hosting Security and TechnologyReplies: 14Last Post: 06-04-2010, 08:19 PM