Zeroing Out HD..How Long?

[GGD]

wickedsteve wrote:
[quote=GGD]
A little back of the envelope math.

Let's assume that it can write about 30MB/sec. So, 60,000MB/30MB = 2000 seconds per pass, 8 passes = 16,000 seconds.

16,000/60 = 266.66 minutes
266.66/60 = 4.44 hours. Use that as a ballpark estimate.

Is this theoretical maximum on paper or reasonable expectation of real world performance?
A lot depends on the drive speed, 30MB/sec is a reasonable number for a 7200 RPM drive on an internal bus or on FireWire assuming that the computer running Disk Utility isn't a total dog.

[malfunction]

In regards to the efficacy of zeroing out the drive:

http://16systems.com/zero/index.html

[IronMac]

Well over 12 hrs later, it's only about a third of the way done.

malfunction, wish I had seen that link earlier! I would have gone with only one pass instead of eight.

Oh yeah, it's an internal drive.

[GGD]

IronMac wrote:
Well over 12 hrs later, it's only about a third of the way done.

malfunction, wish I had seen that link earlier! I would have gone with only one pass instead of eight.

Oh yeah, it's an internal drive.

Were you doing a full erase of the drive, or just a "zero unused space" type of operation. The latter will likely take longer.

Also were you booted from the install CD/DVD, that's the only way I've ever done this, especially an internal drive.

What computer? Is it an old iBook with a 4200 RPM drive?

If it take 36 hours, then you're only seeing about 3.7 MB/Sec write speed which is really slow.

[IronMac]

Ok, guess we need more info...

I am wiping clean a 5400-rpm, 60-gig drive with 8-pass zeroing-out. I did not boot from an install DVD but from the 120-gig boot drive I have in there.

The drive is installed in a G4 933 PowerMac. I am now thinking that one reason why this is taking so long is that the drive might be hooked up to the ATA connector that is meant for the Zip drive. That's an ATA-33 connector I think versus the normal ATA-66.

The ATA-66 connector normally handles two drives but there may be a dead IBM drive hooked into it.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

malfunction wrote:
In regards to the efficacy of zeroing out the drive:

http://16systems.com/zero/index.html

$40 prize for their "challenge?" That would not cover the wage costs of a tech to open up a UPS box and hook it up to an analysis machine. It might not even be worth the time to look up the traffic stats of their website to see if a company would get any sort of advertising buzz from it.

[Racer X]

IronMac wrote:
Ok, guess we need more info...

I am wiping clean a 5400-rpm, 60-gig drive with 8-pass zeroing-out. I did not boot from an install DVD but from the 120-gig boot drive I have in there.

The drive is installed in a G4 933 PowerMac. I am now thinking that one reason why this is taking so long is that the drive might be hooked up to the ATA connector that is meant for the Zip drive. That's an ATA-33 connector I think versus the normal ATA-66.

The ATA-66 connector normally handles two drives but there may be a dead IBM drive hooked into it.

I think the optical buss on pre MDD machines is ATA/16

[GGD]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=malfunction]
In regards to the efficacy of zeroing out the drive:

http://16systems.com/zero/index.html

$40 prize for their "challenge?" That would not cover the wage costs of a tech to open up a UPS box and hook it up to an analysis machine. It might not even be worth the time to look up the traffic stats of their website to see if a company would get any sort of advertising buzz from it.
Where did you see $40, I saw $500.

Should someone win, they get to keep the drive. They also will receive $500.00 USD and the title "King (or Queen) of Data Recovery".

I still would like to see some service that claims that they can do it and what they charge for it, and a documented case of what was recovered.

Even a link to a site that claims to produce software that can do this might help me become more of a believer that this type of recovery is a serious data security threat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_recove...itten_data

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=recover+overwritten+data&btnG=Search

[Filliam H. Muffman]

GGD wrote: Where did you see $40, I saw $500.

That is a good question. I will swear that the prize was listed as $40 when I first read the page. Now I do not even see "$40" anywhere on the page. :dunno: