Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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RMAing a large HDD that has pirated movies/games on it, is it necessary to completely zero the drive? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The manufacturer requires that the faulty HDD be sent back. It's 18 TB, so ShredOS estimates 100 hours to completely wipe the drive. I really would rather not go through that. Does anyone else have experience with this?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If you're really worried about it, grab a free Linux dvd from a random computer magazine. Ctrl+A, then delete everything on the drive. Empty the recycle bin. Now copy and paste the dvd onto the drive as many times as it takes to fill it completely. When done, Ctrl+A again, delete and empty recycle bin again.

If you've got an agreed RMA, they're not going to go a deep dive file recovery, they'll be logging the serial number in a database and chucking the drive in the recycle pile. Emptying, filling and emptying again is more than enough.