topic Re: RAID is causing issues Deleting Drives - Help! in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

RAID is causing issues Deleting Drives - Help!

Tessando — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:35:11 GMT

I have 10 ProLiant DL360G3 servers that contain the Integrated Smart Array 5i Controller for RAID for two drives (the standard configuration as shipped).

I would like to use a Disk Utility like DBAN (or something similar) to permadently erase the data on the drives before donating them to a worthy cause.

I have used the SmartStart data erase function (on the CD) but would like to do a literal "bit flip" on these. I can't seem to find accurate directons to diassemble the RAID funcationality and have tried several feaures in the Array Configuration Utility (on the SmartStart CD). Anyone with some "ninja skills" good for some suggestions to assist?

Thanks for your help!

Re: RAID is causing issues Deleting Drives - Help!

Jimmy Vance — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:48:03 GMT

You can't disable the RAID controller functionality. Another option besides the erase utility on the SmartStart Cd is to boot a live Linux distribution and "dd" random data to the device.

Live distros should load the cciss driver for this older model server. The array should show up as /dev/cciss/c0d0 if just one logical drive is defined in the array.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/cciss/c0d0 bs=4096

or the /dev/random stream:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/cciss/c0d0 bs=4096

If the live distro has it, another option is to use shred

Re: RAID is causing issues Deleting Drives - Help!

Dennis Handly — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:14:25 GMT

>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/cciss/c0d0 bs=4096

You may want a larger blocksize:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/cciss/c0d0 bs=1M

Re: RAID is causing issues Deleting Drives - Help!

Tessando — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:07:39 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate it.

Is there a live Linux distribution that you prefer? I'm open to favorites or suggestions.

Thanks!