internal hard drive wiping

Angel

Good afternoon, I need some assistance.

How can I perform a secure erase or format on the hard drives of a NetApp server (models FAS2040 and FAS2650)?

AlexDawson

ONTAP has built in disk sanitization commands, however for 7 mode (FAS2040) it requires a license code, and we don't have those available anymore. The value of the hardware is essentially zero now, so I would suggest physical destruction of the drives is the way to go for that system.

For The FAS2650, which will be running Clustered ONTAP, it's more achievable -

1. Destroy all data aggregates and remove any user data, leaving only the root aggregate on each node. Sanitization can only be performed on spare disks. [kb.netapp.com], [docs.netapp.com]
2. Sanitize all non-root spare disks and wait for completion. Verify status and logs. [docs.netapp.com], [docs.netapp.com]
3. Install or designate a small replacement set of disks for new root aggregates. These can be drives that have already been sanitized. Create new root aggregates from this disk set.
4. Reinitialize the cluster/nodes so that the new root aggregates become the active boot/root storage.
5. Remove the original root aggregate disks from service so they become spare disks and are no longer required for booting.
6. Sanitize the former root aggregate disks, which are now spare disks like all the others. [kb.netapp.com], [docs.netapp.com]
7. Verify sanitization completion and logs for all drives. ONTAP records sanitized disk serial numbers and sanitization activity in log files. [docs.netapp.com], [docs.netapp.com]
8. Power down and remove the disks for disposal, resale, or return.

And if it's running ONTAP 9.6 or later, you can do it from the maintenance mode boot menu, so no need to run two sets of sanitization (steps 3-6)

Hope this helps!