Secure erase in QTS 4.3.4 missing

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

depends what firmware version you are running. secure erase was added in a newer firmware forgot which version exactly

[Mousetick]

Have you tried searching the forum? The answer is contained within this thread:
Secure erase of hard drives

TLDR: The drive must not belong to a storage pool.

Funnily enough, both TECH1982 and Moogle Stiltzkin participated in the aforementioned thread. And Moogle provides an excerpt from some unidentified QNAP documentation. I wonder where he found it, because as far as I can tell, there is no complete documentation on Storage & Snapshots Manager, and 'Secure Erase' is nowhere to be found on the QNAP web site, except on the QTS 4.3.4 marketing page.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Have you tried searching the forum? The answer is contained within this thread:
Secure erase of hard drives

TLDR: The drive must not belong to a storage pool.

Funnily enough, both TECH1982 and Moogle Stiltzkin participated in the aforementioned thread. And Moogle provides an excerpt from some unidentified QNAP documentation. I wonder where he found it, because as far as I can tell, there is no complete documentation on Storage & Snapshots Manager, and 'Secure Erase' is nowhere to be found on the QNAP web site, except on the QTS 4.3.4 marketing page.

either it was from a newsletter i got in my mail, or i saw a web newsletter somewhere on the web. either way i recall i copy pasted this from somewhere, i did not just type that out usually i would include the sauce link... but since i didn't then it probably was from a marketing newsletter i read from my mail.

i also recall they mentioned this in a youtube at some point.

*update

nm i found where i got it from. Go to QTS, storage manager. Click the "?" then scroll down, and there should be mention of secure erase there. I copied pasted from there

[Toxic17]

The option is only available when disks are not raided or in a Volume.

Select a single disk, then goto Action, and erase disk option is there. When Disks are raided, the Action heading of "Secure Erase" is hidden.

[DIY_glenn]

I have the same problem.
I have a functional RAID + a single drive I'd like to erase. The secure erase option is not listed.

The drive is not part of a RAID or includes a Volume, so I tried creating a static volume, but no difference.

The drive has a S.M.A.R.T error, and I'm going to send it to Seagate, but I'd like to erase it first.

Update:
Inserted another drive which is "OK" and listed as free. It can be secure erased.

Probably a limitation, "Good" drives only.

[DIY_glenn]

Found a workaround for my problem.

I could only choose "Secure Erase" from a healthy drive, but when started I could choose which drives to erase, and I could pick the drive with the error

qn01.png

I opted to secure erase both anyways, they were part of an earlier RAID1.

qn02.png

[Thisisnotmyname]

Another option would be to SSH into the NAS and then use the shred utility.

Or just set up your array with encryption to begin with and then who cares if you return a drive with data on it.

[alokeprasad]

How do I remove 1 HDD from a RAID6 from the QTS UI? I need to exchange it with the seller. I understand that this will degrade my RAID, but I have the replacement HDD handy.

I was advised to hot-pull it.

I would rather remove it within QTS if it allows me to secure-erase it in QTS. Otherwise I'll have to attach the pulled drive to a PC and erase it there. I bit of a hassle.

[Thisisnotmyname]

How do I remove 1 HDD from a RAID6 from the QTS UI? I need to exchange it with the seller. I understand that this will degrade my RAID, but I have the replacement HDD handy.

I was advised to hot-pull it.

I would rather remove it within QTS if it allows me to secure-erase it in QTS. Otherwise I'll have to attach the pulled drive to a PC and erase it there. I bit of a hassle.

there's no way to take it out of the array in QTS. I suppose you could use mdadm to remove the drive from the array and then shred it but that seems like a big hassle too. I'd just hot swap it then put it in a USB dock to shred if you still want to do that.

Since multiple people are asking about shredding prior to drive returns just another plug for encrypting your data. At that point there's no need to shred anything (which depending on how the drive failed you may not be able to do after the failure anyway) as the third party won't be able to access any of your data in clear form.

I'll also add that with one disk out of an array someone would have to be quite dedicated to view any meaningful amount of your data. In an an eight disk RAID6 array they'll only have 1/6 of your data. Small files may be fully intact but most will only be a portion of a file and depending on the content may be completely unusable in that state.

[alokeprasad]

The option is only available when disks are not raided or in a Volume.

Select a single disk, then go to Action, and erase disk option is there. When Disks are raided, the Action heading of "Secure Erase" is hidden.

Actually, your dead right on this one

I had to first 1. remove these disks from RAID so they appear *grey* (under Storage&Snapshots/Disks) 2. then "secure erase" appeared under Actions menu. At the end of the day, disks are still disks, regardless of RAID or not, so i'm note sure why they would hide the option in a RAID array fashion, but allow you to do this only in single disk.

I'm going by those lines in the above post.
It sounds like Tech1982 did that in QTS GUI. Maybe that's an incorrect interp.

[DIY_glenn]

Another option would be to SSH into the NAS and then use the shred utility.

Or just set up your array with encryption to begin with and then who cares if you return a drive with data on it.

I believe that is only an option with the built-in "admin" account. I've disabled that account.

[alokeprasad]

Guys,

"1. remove these disks from RAID so they appear *grey* (under Storage&Snapshots/Disks) 2. then "secure erase" appeared under Actions menu."

How did you remove a HDD from a RAID group and still have it installed inside the NAS?