incremental disk wipe?

[blind Pete]

rikona wrote:

> I was checking the timing of securely wiping large disks - looks like
> it takes a looooong time. Is there a way to do this in smaller
> 'chunks', that might complete in an hour or so, eventually filling up
> the entire disk? I'm not hiding plots from NSA, so I don't need
> extreme security - just enough to discourage easy-tech snoops. :-))

Some disk manufactures claim that all data on the platter is encrypted 
with a random key and that secure deletion only requires changing 
the key.  I'm not sure that I would trust them to get it right, but it 
should be very quick and even take care of data on re-allocated 
sectors.  

Have a look at "man hdparm".  

-- 
blind Pete
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