25Ara
Should a secure ATA erase be performed on a non-SSD drive?
When running the command hdparm -I /dev/sda the following output is generated.
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD10JPVX-75JC3T0
Serial Number: WX51A9324970
Firmware Revision: 01.01A01
Transport: Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
Supported: 9 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 9
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 1953525168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 4096 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 953869 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
cache/buffer size = 8192 KBytes
**Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400**
Of interest is the description and value Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400. This indicates that the hard drive is mechanical and not flash.
There is support for ATA secure erase as suggested by the output albeit I would have not anticipated a secure erase taking as long as 198 mins.
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
198min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 198min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Given that the device is not a solid state drive, should a secure ATA erase still be performed?
If no, why? If yes, why?
Would shred --verbose --random-source=/dev/urandom -n1 /dev/sda support the same or a similar outcome i.e. irrecoverable data including defective or deallocated sectors?
