Secure data disposal for disk drive
View Patent ↗When a disk sector is written to, a bit for the sector is set indicating that the sector will require secure data disposal (SDD) to be run on it. To save time during end of life disposal, SDD is executed only on sectors whose bits indicate that they have been written to. SDD can be executed on each dirty sector in one operation at end of life or incrementally during use as disk activity permits.
1. A disk drive, comprising:
at least one data storage disk;
at least one processor writing data to one or more data regions of the disk; and
a tangible program storage device bearing instructions executable by the processor to:
pursuant to writing data to a data region, determine whether another data region has been designated as being a free data region as a result; and
execute secure data disposal (SDD) only on the free data region, wherein the SDD includes writing a first pattern into substantially all bit locations of a data region.
2. The disk drive of claim 1 , wherein the SDD includes:
after writing the first pattern into substantially all bit locations of the data region then
writing at least a second pattern different from the first pattern into substantially all bit locations of the same data region.
3. The disk drive of claim 1 , wherein SDD is executed on the free data region immediately after the free data region is indicated as being a free data region.
4. The disk drive of claim 1 , wherein SDD is executed on the free data region during an idle period of the drive subsequent to indicating that the free data region is a free data region.