topic Re: How to destroy all data on an EVA array in Disk Enclosures

How to destroy all data on an EVA array

Knoechel — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:13:19 GMT

Hello,
we are replacing old EVA3000 systems from (public) customers. Is the a reliable (and supported) way to destroy all data on the old system? Uninitialize alone probably will not do it.
best regards,
Guenter

Re: How to destroy all data on an EVA array

Ivan Ferreira — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:22:07 GMT

Please see:

https://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1064504

Re: How to destroy all data on an EVA array

Luk Vandenbussche — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:22:59 GMT

Unitialize is a good way.
You cannot recover the array after the unitialize. The only way is a initialization of the array

Re: How to destroy all data on an EVA array

Brian Hope — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:57:48 GMT

I don't agree that you can not get the data back on the EVA after doing an initialization. In a lab I have done a test that included doing a capture config. Once done I initialized the array (EVA5000 VCS 3028). Once done I reinitilized the array with the captured configuration and all my Hosts, Virtual Disks, and more importantly all the data was still there and useable. While I know that doing this is not a supported HP practice, it is possible. Did this with an HP technician. So What you might want to do is reinitialize the array with multiple disk groups and us a product like Iometer from Intel (not sure they still own it.)and run random disk writes to the disk. Then delete the diskgroups and do it again with different sized disk groups. This will help as the RSS sets etc will be different sizes etc and the metadata should get scrambbled enough to make some significant impact on data recovery. Hope I helped.