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Ask Slashdot: Datacenter HDD Wipe Policy?
New submitter socheres (1771002) writes I keep a Slackware server hosted at various datacenters on leased hardware for personal / freelance business use. I have been doing this for the last 10 years and during this time I moved my stuff to several datacenters, some small and some big name companies. No matter the hosting company, since I choose to install my own OS and not take a pre-installed machine, I always got the hardware delivered with the previous guys' data stored on the hard drives. It was also the case with spare drives, which were not installed new if I did not ask specifically for new ones. Has this happened to you? How often?
Issuing the ATA Secure Erase command is the most professional way. The drive itself knows the most efficient way to nuke all data from the orbit. Especially useful for SSDs as it might also zero hidden wear leveled data and set all sectors into a TRIMmed state.