# Sanitizing a Drive

You can erase the data residing on a drive using the Sanitize feature. The Sanitize option is similar to the Drive Erase feature that is already supported by your controller, except that the Sanitize option is performed by the drive firmware, whereas the Drive Erase feature is performed by the controller firmware.

The Sanitize option is an industry standard SCSI feature. It uses industry standard Sanitize SCSI Block command. The Sanitize operation is constantly monitored the by controller firmware and the drive sanitization progress events are notified to you through Background Operations Support.

To Sanitize a drive, you must make sure that:

- The selected drive is in an Unconfigured Good state.
- The selected drive is not a JBOD drive.
- The selected drive is not part of any array, dedicated spare drive, or global spare drive.

Sanitize operation is enabled only when no other operation is in progress on the selected drive.

When the Sanitize operation is in progress, you cannot perform any other operation on the drive that is being sanitized.

Perform the following steps to sanitize a drive:

1. Navigate to the Controller dashboard and click the Drives tab.
   All of the associated drives appear.
2. Expand Unconfigured Drives and choose an unconfigured good drive.

   - You can run drive sanitization on multiple Unconfigured Good drives at the same time.

     However, the Sanitize option is only enabled when the same type of sanitize operation is supported on all the selected drives. For example, on solid state drives (SSDs), Block Erase is allowed, and on hard disk drives (HDDs), Overwrite is allowed.

   - You cannot run the Sanitize operation on mixed drive types.

     For example, you have selected two drives to run the Sanitize operation; one of them is an SSD and the other one is an HDD. In this scenario, you will not be able to run the Sanitize operation because they are not the same drive type, nor are they of the same sanitize operation type.

3. Select Actions > More Actions > Start Sanitize.

   The Sanitize Drive dialog appears.

   Note: After you start the drive sanitize operation, you cannot stop or pause the operation until it is complete.
   Figure 1. Sanitize Dialog

   Depending on the drives you have selected for sanitization (SSDs or HDDs), the following options are available:

   - Overwrite – If you have selected HDD, you can sanitize the physical using the Overwrite option.

     This option writes a particular data pattern on the drive one or more times.

   - Block Erase – If you have selected SSDs, you can sanitize the drives using the Block Erase option.

     This option sets the physical blocks on the drive to a vendor-specific value.

   - Allow Unrestricted Sanitize Exit – If, for some reason, the Sanitize operation fails, the system tries to bring the drive out of the failure mode irrespective of whether you select this check box not.

     However, if this check box is selected, and if the system succeeds in bringing the drive out of the failure mode, the drive is then returned as an Unconfigured Good drive. If you do not select this check box, and if the Sanitize operation fails, the system places the drive in an Unconfigured Bad state.

4. Click Sanitize Drive.

   A confirmation message appears.

5. Click Yes, Sanitize Drive(s) to start sanitizing the selected drives.

   You can monitor the progress of the Sanitize operation in the Background Operations section. The status of the drive is also displayed as Sanitize until the sanitization operation completes.

Parent topic: Managing Physical Drives