erasing a nas drive permanently?

[mrex]

- NAS: wd dl2100 - two bay nas / raid1
- dock?: no external dock for nas drives to connect to a computer
- computer: mbp

i just bought another ”wd red label” to replace a bad drive and i found that wd is nowadays selling cheap ”red label” drives (smr, not cmr). And the drive needs to be returned and replaced.

I do not have a dock for the drive, so what do i do to erase the disk permanently? Normally i would use fdisk or similar product to erase and write the disk by ”null” several times, but now it is a nas drive that can be operated only through the nas itself.

Is there a possibility to remove another (the working drive) and leave this new, cheap drive inside the nas and format/erased it to be erased permanently and be securely returned to the seller?


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[Trip]

A factory-reset with full restore from the NAS's GUI will run a 1-pass zeroing of any drives present.

 

[mrex]

A factory-reset with full restore from the NAS's GUI will run a 1-pass zeroing of any drives present.

i only need to erase a one drive (”drive1”) without loosing settings, volumes, shares, etc. the nas is working fine and after replacing that ”drive1”, the new drive will be rebuilt (raid1) again from ”drive2”.


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[dosborne]

Personally, I would put the drive into my PC or use a USB-to-SATA cable ($2 on eBay) to connect it, and erase it that way.

You *should* be able to backup the configuration in the NAS, remove the existing drives, install the one you want to erase, do that, then reload the config and reinstall your other drive.

Or, unless you have something particularly sensitive, just send it back. If it was part of a raid volume then I doubt anyone would care about trying to recover it

 

[L&LD]

Yes, no need to 'just use it in a NAS' because it is a NAS drive.

@dosborne is giving good advice above.

 

[mrex]

yes i know but at themoment when returning the drive back tomorrow, i dont have time to buy or get something to get the drive work with with my computer.


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[ColinTaylor]

I'm confused as to why you haven't just plugged it into a PC with a SATA cable and formatted or wiped it from there?

EDIT: OK I think I see - MacBook Pro. Do you have a real PC you can use?

 

[mrex]

I'm confused as to why you haven't just plugged it into a PC with a SATA cable and formatted or wiped it from there?

EDIT: OK I think I see - MacBook Pro. Do you have a real PC you can use?

no, i dont hve a pc - neither the cable - and the disk is ext4 so you just cannot attach the drive to a computer anyway.


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[ColinTaylor]

and the disk is ext4 so you just cannot attach the drive to a computer anyway.

If you did have a cable it wouldn't matter whether the filesystem was ext4 or something else as you don't want to recover the data. You would just be wiping the disk as a raw device.

EDIT: I'm not familiar with your NAS but some of the ones I've seen have the configuration stored entirely on the hard drives. i.e. the NAS itself doesn't store any configuration settings. In such a case you could remove all the current drives temporarily and then put back in the one drive you want to wipe. Then use the NAS to format/wipe the drive. After that's finished remove the wiped drive and replace the original drives. (Obviously you would be powering off the NAS before swapping the drives)

 

[dosborne]

You *should* be able to backup the configuration in the NAS, remove the existing drives, install the one you want to erase, do that, then reload the config and reinstall your other drive.

 

[mrex]

If you did have a cable it wouldn't matter whether the filesystem was ext4 or something else as you don't want to recover the data. You would just be wiping the disk as a raw device.

EDIT: I'm not familiar with your NAS but some of the ones I've seen have the configuration stored entirely on the hard drives. i.e. the NAS itself doesn't store any configuration settings. In such a case you could remove all the current drives temporarily and then put back in the one drive you want to wipe. Then use the NAS to format/wipe the drive. After that's finished remove the wiped drive and replace the original drives. (Obviously you would be powering off the NAS before swapping the drives)

im not sure about that.. if it is config files on drive(s) or the nas itself.

the matter it is that the drive has a software (nasware 3) and i dont know how it is stored (legally)... i just cant wipe the disk randomly if i have no idea if it is working after wiping. because it raised the licensing issue..

this is the real problem because the documentation is pretty bad... there isnt enough information ”what if” cases... if not any..


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[dosborne]

i just cant wipe the disk randomly if i have no idea if it is working after wiping. because it raised the licensing issue..

From a google search, the NAS can be purchased without drives, and you install your own. Given that, I fail understand your "licensing" issues. Just put the drive you want to erase in the NAS by itself so you don't accidentally erase the wrong one, erase it, then put your "good" drives back.

 

[PeterT]

I believe nasware is just firmware and not something that will be affected by formatting / partitioning the drive

 

[L&LD]

@PeterT the firmware may not be affected, but the settings may be.

 

[mrex]

From a google search, the NAS can be purchased without drives, and you install your own. Given that, I fail understand your "licensing" issues. Just put the drive you want to erase in the NAS by itself so you don't accidentally erase the wrong one, erase it, then put your "good" drives back.

The disk has ”nasware 3” inside it.. i dont know how it is stored, so wiping the disk may also affect the possible software installed on the disk itself - if it is a software on the disk itself. The drives aren just blank. The nas itself and harddrives are two separate components.


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[dosborne]

Nasware on a WD red drive has nothing to do with the brand of NAS used. It is part of the hard drive firmware that provides optimization when used in a NAS device but is 100% completely isolated. It is not "stored" on the disk, it is part of the firmware and/or chipset. It is similar to saying your router has 802.11N support.

https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-ca/solutions/network-attached-storage/nasware

I believe nasware is just firmware and not something that will be affected by formatting / partitioning the drive

Correct.

The drives aren just blank.

The drives CAN be "blank". You could have purchased and used ANY HDD that you wanted.

The nas itself and harddrives are two separate components.

This seems to be the part you don't want to take our advice on. Yes, they are 2 different interchangeable things.

P.S. although a "Red" drive has optimizations for use in a NAS, it works just fine in a non-NAS (i.e. PC). Similarly a WD ”Green", "Blue", "Black" "Purple" or "Gold" HDD can be used in a NAS, or a PC, .... They have been optimized for certain tasks, but are essentially interchangeable (I prefer red (or similar options from other vendors) for use in my PC for example).

Names subject to change lol
WD https://community.wd.com/t/drive-colors/222303
Seagate https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/internal-hard-drives/

P.P.S. Seagate Ironwolf (or Ironwolf pro or Exos) drives have similar technology to the WD Red series drives. https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/

With *VERY* few exceptions (and only in rare vendor products or "sealed" external drive products) any mainstream NAS can use any mainstream HDD. Personally, I have not and will likely never buy a NAS with hard drives already installed as this is main selling point for me. I can choose what I want to put in there. Do I need a fast drive, or one with more error correction or one that runs cooler or one with more capacity ....

 

[mrex]

Nasware on a WD red drive has nothing to do with the brand of NAS used. It is part of the hard drive firmware that provides optimization when used in a NAS device but is 100% completely isolated. It is not "stored" on the disk, it is part of the firmware and/or chipset. It is similar to saying your router has 802.11N support.

https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-ca/solutions/network-attached-storage/nasware


Correct.

The drives CAN be "blank". You could have purchased and used ANY HDD that you wanted.


This seems to be the part you don't want to take our advice on. Yes, they are 2 different interchangeable things.

P.S. although a "Red" drive has optimizations for use in a NAS, it works just fine in a non-NAS (i.e. PC). Similarly a WD ”Green", "Blue", "Black" "Purple" or "Gold" HDD can be used in a NAS, or a PC, .... They have been optimized for certain tasks, but are essentially interchangeable (I prefer red (or similar options from other vendors) for use in my PC for example).

Names subject to change lol
WD https://community.wd.com/t/drive-colors/222303
Seagate https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/internal-hard-drives/

P.P.S. Seagate Ironwolf (or Ironwolf pro or Exos) drives have similar technology to the WD Red series drives. https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/

With *VERY* few exceptions (and only in rare vendor products or "sealed" external drive products) any mainstream NAS can use any mainstream HDD. Personally, I have not and will likely never buy a NAS with hard drives already installed as this is main selling point for me. I can choose what I want to put in there. Do I need a fast drive, or one with more error correction or one that runs cooler or one with more capacity ....

Actually red drives used to be cmr not smr drives as nowadays. Mixing cmr and smr is not recommended...

Just got an email from WD and they said that i cannot securely erase the drive.


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[L&LD]

You can't securely erase an HDD. Only an SSD is securely erasable if that feature is built-in to its firmware.

 

[ColinTaylor]

You can't securely erase an HDD. Only an SSD is securely erasable if that feature is built-in to its firmware.

Really? So what are all those utilities I've been using for the last 20+ years? DBAN does a pretty good job.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06204100
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10850
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-securely-erase-hard-drives-hdds-and-solid-state-drives-ssds/
https://www.diskpart.com/articles/erase-wd-my-passport-external-hard-drive-8523.html
https://fossbytes.com/best-hard-drive-eraser-tools/

 

[L&LD]

@ColinTaylor, not for SSD's.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-securely-erase-an-ssd-drive/