Massive Diskwipe Dilemma

[Vade762]

Here is the scenario: I'm an intern at a big software company and my job now is to wipe hard-drives they nolonger use. There are around 2000 drives I need to wipe, 100GB to 1000GB in size, and corporate says they need to be reusable afterwards, so smashing them isn't an option.

 

PC they gave me is a Dell Optiplex 980

i5 650, 8gb ram, 4 sata-slots. I can wipe 4 drives at a time and it takes me (the computer) 6 hours. Id like to squeeze this down to 4 hours or less, because of the 8-hour day.

 

My question is, Does CPU and RAM or other factors like that affect the time it takes to wipe a drive, and if yes, how do I prove this to my boss? Or should I just find some setup with more sata connections? External devices like HDD-docks seem to wipe 2-5 times slower.

[Syntaxvgm]

For the most part, cpu and ram are not with a decent computer if its just sending random data or 0s. You can either have them buy dedicated disk wiping bays, which are automatic and require no computer, or if you want to be cheap just get those drive docks, the usb ones that look like toasters and are about 30-35 US. 
Dedicated drive erasers that do a configurable number of multiple passes and random data are more expensive that usb docks, but you can go for the 2-3 bay versions which are typically the price per bay and just stack them up. These were my preferred solution, the right ones you slap it in and you don't even need to press a button if it's configured like that.
 

If you go the cheap route and use usb docks, you should use USB 3 if you have it (this is your problem likely), and you can use hubs, just keep bandwidth in mind. Each mechanical drive is probably capable of somewhere in the neighborhood of 90-150 MB/s sustained writes (720-1200 Megbits/second). You don't need 100% as doing more at once is the goal, just keep it in mind. One proper port with the full bandwidth can do 5-6 mechanical drives without much slowdown, where USB2 will only get you 60MB/s on one drive. You can add a usb3 pcie card if needed.

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Express-15-Pin-Connector-KT5001/dp/B00FPIMICA
Check their supply storage, most places have at least some usb drive docks, see if they have any good usb3 ones to get you started. If you need to buy them, check benchmarks with both bays going on cdmark, you'll see that in amazon reviews a lot. Even if it's slower, if you can get a fuck ton going at once, that's better too.
Try to match the sizes kind of if you can so they finish around the same time and you don't have to babysit. Put a group in before you leave too if you can time it.
 

As for the software, I don't know what they are using, but make sure it works with usb. Some bootable ones have trouble if not configured right, but anything in windows should work ok. Make sure you are at least writing all 0s to the drive, and if they require random data writing, then do it. Do only the number of passes the policy requires- and if they don't require multiple passes don't do it, save time with that many drives.

At 2000 drives, this is sounds like a large volume and may be a recurring problem. The alternative is to ask to build a specialized solution. Get the cheapest build with a case the can be filled entirely with 3 bay 5 drive hot swap bays. Or buy a premade solution, but they will cost multiple times more.  If you need to work with like SAS drives from servers at a later point, keep that in consideration. Keeping an old decommissioned server with front hot swap bays is cheapest there. 
 

Finally, I know in this case they want to reuse, but if they're saving a buck and want you to completely destroy without the automatic equipment in the future, ask for a cheap drillpress, or a cheap corded drill and good bits. Press is easier, safer, and better on your hands though. This is the fastest destruction method that's cheap. You can get a couple hundred drives an hour easy that way. With drives that are marked for destruction, check that they don't have any special policies, like matching DoD or NSA standard or something, like degaussing, which requires specialized equipment and is stupid because it does nothing a few holes or shattering cant unless you got like the fbi or something looking into you and even they would have a hard time- at which point metal shredders are cheaper and funner, though a liability possibly. Some larger companies like to match their policy with shit like this, looks good to upper management or something idk. 

[RasmusDC]

get a couple of cheap sata controllers for the motherboard.. so you can wipe 10-20 pr 6 hours... the speed of the disk is the bottleneck not the cpu..

 

so adding a 4 port controller would just double your output, and they are CHEAP.

[Syntaxvgm]

11 minutes ago, RasmusDC said:

get a couple of cheap sata controllers for the motherboard.. so you can wipe 10-20 pr 6 hours... the speed of the disk is the bottleneck not the cpu..

 

so adding a 4 port controller would just double your output, and they are CHEAP.

This is another thing to check if you have any in storage. I stand behind usb as the cheapo method to get like tons of drives going that are hot swapable are require no plugging (I've seen 30+ at near full speed with a couple of usb cards), but this seems like a thing you also may have lying around, and any solution you can use right now that doesn't require you to request new equipment is a good solution. For the more long term solution of building something that's full of hot swap bays, these cards are what you'd use. 

[unijab]

Are the drives sata or sas?

[BrinkGG]

9 hours ago, Vade762 said:

Here is the scenario: I'm an intern at a big software company and my job now is to wipe hard-drives they nolonger use. There are around 2000 drives I need to wipe, 100GB to 1000GB in size, and corporate says they need to be reusable afterwards, so smashing them isn't an option.

 

PC they gave me is a Dell Optiplex 980

i5 650, 8gb ram, 4 sata-slots. I can wipe 4 drives at a time and it takes me (the computer) 6 hours. Id like to squeeze this down to 4 hours or less, because of the 8-hour day.

 

My question is, Does CPU and RAM or other factors like that affect the time it takes to wipe a drive, and if yes, how do I prove this to my boss? Or should I just find some setup with more sata connections? External devices like HDD-docks seem to wipe 2-5 times slower.

Buy an HBA card off of eBay, or an old RAID controller with IT firmware flashed to it (Used all the time for FreeNAS or other ZFS solutions), which will act like an HBA. Plug 8 or more drives in with that and go ham. Depending on the software, you could go up from that with a SAS expander and up to 25 drives (Plus boot drive). Don't think you can go over 25 drives cause you need individual drive letter assignment per drive. 

After that, your 6 hour wipe time doesn't look that bad if you can leave your drives wiping when you're not at work.