Fastest way to test and wipe hard drives.

[pwagner9999]

Does anyone here have practical experience with hardware based hard drive sanitizers/testers?

I am looking for a better faster way to wipe AND test hundreds of hard drives SATA and IDE. Does anyone know if any of these machines actually verify that the hard drive is actually good enough for reuse?

There are lots to choose from but I find it hard to find reviews from actual users.

I'm not allowed to post links?

 

[MrUnknown]

for erasing, use CMRR Secure Erase
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

It uses a ATA command to wipe a HDD and is very fast.

Secure Erase is built into all ATA-compliant disks drives since 2001. This functionality is recognized by the US Government’s National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) as equivalent to magnetically wiping a drive (degaussing) or physically destroying it. NIST also rates the secure erase commands as more secure than external host-based drive wiping utilities such as Boot and Nuke. Secure Erase complies with HIPAA, Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and California Senate Bill 1386 for data destruction.

As for testing, a short SMART test doesn't takes only about 2min or so. The only way to test an entire HDD would be to write and read every sector which would take a long time. Even then, the drive could fail at any moment. Also, I have seen dying drives pass both the short and long SMART tests.

and no, you can't post links yet due to anti-spam. Not sure how many posts it takes to activate it. I think 5.

 

[Skyhooker]

Take a look at MHDD - has many drive diagnostics as well as erase function. It's one of my favorite tools.

 

[dbdawn]

I have used one of these things, it is actually pretty nice. Only takes a couple of hours to erase a drive.

We just got one of these bad boys in at work, takes less than a minute to wipe a drive. It is nice but I imagine the cost is up there compared to the first one I linked to.

 

[dynacameron]

I agree with ur reply thanks for the suggestion

 

[MobileTechie]

I have used one of these things, it is actually pretty nice. Only takes a couple of hours to erase a drive.

That's a nice little tool to keep a computer free. However I'm dubious about their claim it's any quicker than software for the Fast Erase function. I've used that function to secure erase drives from software and it is as quick as they describe. I was under the impression that the speed of that function was limited by the disk rather than any software. I could be wrong.

Re: the deguasser - surely only good for destrying a drive permanently? Any degaussing is going to also wipe the drive's own software areas rendering it useless. So I guess you only use these on drives going to the tip?

 

[Puff]

I use the Drive Erazer Pro. It works great, does a verification when complete, simple to operate and doesn't require you to tie up a computer.

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/Drive_eRazer.php

 

[geekhelp4u]

I use one of these: http://www.aleratec.com/350104.html