Is there a software with the capabilities of (BCWipe - Free Space Wipe) that will allow you to wipe the free space in a Raid 5 without breaking the points?
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Is there a software with the capabilities of (BCWipe - Free Space Wipe) that will allow you to wipe the free space in a Raid 5 without breaking the points?
I would think that any of the wipe programs would work as it would still write the bytes across all drives and the checksums would be conputed on the new bytes written.
As far as I know, the motherboard is not aware that a RAID is being run. It is only aware of one hard drive. I believe the RAID hardware then copies the redundant info across the other 4. So it should just be a only matter of time before the other drives are wiped too. They should be, ideally, bitwise copies of each other. As long as the system doesn't shut down in that time period, you should be OK. So my advice would be to wipe whatever you need destroyed, and then lock the computer for half an hour or so. If this is being done on a server then obviously other measures would need to be taken. Perhaps wiping the files overnight, or during scheduled downtime. But verify this info before you trust your secrets to it.
It is a Server and we are trying to do it without breaking the mounts or causing any type of down-time. - www.down-time.net -
The only problem I could see with wiping files on a RAID would be that the disks are not synced in real time - they are synchronized every half hour or so, AFAIK. So yes - the free space would be wiped across every drive in the system, but only once. On one of the drives, the free space would be overwritten however many times the wipe utility specifies. However, this would most likely be completed long before a synchronization. Some time later the other drives would have the free space wiped, but only with one pass. So if the only reason you need to wipe this space is so files cannot be recovered with an unerase utility, you should be fine.
However, if you are afraid of the feds or the mob confiscating your computer and subjecting it to sophisticated foresnic recovery tools, you could have a problem. One pass in far from sufficient to prevent file recovery with these types of tools. You need at least ten or so for that. The program would have to write over the space once, and then force a synchronization, then write over again, force another sync, and on and on. Or it would have to be able to communicate directly with the RAID controller. And I have no idea how either would be done. If you need more info, I would suggest asking your hardware vendor or the company that writes your wiping software.
So it all depends on the level of security you need, I think.
I hope I have answered your question. :)