Processing Standards
Hard Drive Sanitizing
The level of security required to comply with strict laws and regulations varies by business. At SE, we understand the laws, but most importantly, we understand the liability and exposure to your company. Depending on your business, you can choose the level of sanitization your company needs.
SE recommends every hard drive be sanitized by Secure Erase. Secure Erase is the process of permanently removing information from a computer by activating a preexisting protocol hard-wired by the manufacturer into the hard drive.
As this process is not accessible directly through the BIOS functions of any computer, it cannot be inadvertently activated. It can only be activated by physically accessing the hard drive with the proper equipment and software.
When executed, Secure Erase causes the drive to internally erase all possible data, including data in reallocated disk sectors (sectors that the drive no longer uses because they have hard errors). To use this process, the hard drive must be newer than 2001 and have a capacity of at least 15GB.
If Secure Erase is not supported by the hardware, SE uses the DoD 5220.22-M method, which overwrites the drive with three passes.
Methods of Sanitization
All methods listed are compliant with NIST 800-88 standards.
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​Secure Erase – ATA firmware wipe. Performs a full drive wipe using built-in ATA commands.
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Enhanced Secure Erase – ATA enhanced firmware-level wipe. Adds improved overwriting or crypto-based wipe if supported by the drive.
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​ATA Sanitize (Block/Crypto) – ATA sanitize using block erase or crypto erase. Standards-based purge operations that erase all user-accessible data
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SCSI Sanitize (Block/Crypto/Overwrite) – SCSI firmware-level wipe. Standards-based purge operations supported by SCSI drives.
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NVMe Sanitize (Block/Crypto/Overwrite) – Native NVMe purge or overwrite. Fast and secure firmware-level sanitization for NVMe SSDs
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NVMe Format (SES/Crypto) – NVMe format with secure erase or crypto option. Erases all user data by reinitializing the drive with secure erase settings
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DOD 5220.22-M – Multi-pass software overwrite.
Two random data passes followed by a final zero fill
Increasing the number of passes over the drive will increase the security of the erase process. The cost of this security, of course, is time.
All types of hard drives can be sanitized by SE, including SATA, SAS and NVMe. IDE and SCSI drives fall outside modern security standards and are physically destroyed upon entry into our system.
A log file is generated identifying whether the sanitizing was 100% successful, after which certification of sanitization is provided for the unique serial number of each hard drive. If the process is not successful, our policy is to destroy the hard drive by shredding or crushing.