topic Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers in ONTAP Discussions

sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

love_netapp — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:10:49 GMT

Hello all,

Is there any i can sanitize the disks with out using the disk_sanitization license, because my customer dont want to buy license for sanitization.

appreciate for your thoughts.

Thanks

Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

riegersteve — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:18:53 GMT

Delete all the aggregates and raid groups that contain the disks in question. Set them all as spares and zero the spares.

Is that enough for your requirements ?

Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

love_netapp — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:22:24 GMT

OK, but making all the disks to zero will that tell that the data on the disks is completely destroyed.

appreciate your thoughts.

Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

riegersteve — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:25:53 GMT

Technically speaking when you destroy the raid group it will be mighty hard for anybody to get the data off your disks,

It all depends on what you mean by wiping disks.

Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

agirard2k — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:19:22 GMT

Hi All,

disk_sanitization license is, as far I know, free of charge. Ask your NetApp Sales representative.

Or ask for a test license if you only need it once.

Regards,

Anthony

Re: sanitizing the disks the data on the netapp filers

reide — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:17:08 GMT

As Steve pointed out, it all depends on YOUR requirements in regards to wiping data. For example, does your company have to meet Department of Defense (DoD) requirements for wiping data? Perhaps to pass an audit for Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI or the handling of SSNs?

If you don't have to meet DoD standard, then destroying the vol/aggregate and zeroing the disks will work just fine. It will delete the entire file layout and make a single-pass zero of the disk.

If you do have to meet DoD requirements, zeroing-out the disk drives will not meet that requirement and isn't likely to pass an audit. DoD requirements stipulate writing multiple data patterns, in multiple passes (six I believe), over the disk drive to ensure that no block written to the drive could ever be recovered. This is why you would need disk sanitization license. Host-based DoD wipe utilities won't necessarily work with NetApp because of the way we virtualize blocks.

Last time I checked, disk sanitization licenses were free. Talk with your NetApp sales representative and they can assist you in obtaining a license key.