Need a HDD formatting machine. Lots of HDDs all the time.

[quizzelbuck]

A friend of mine is building a machine for data destruction of used computers. He needs a way to do like 10 hard drives, low level formatting. One after another, Hotswapping prefereable. Is there an esata device that will make this easier? maybe use external power so he doesnt need a $600-$700 PSU in a case? nor a ridiculous server case either, for that matter? What other factors might he consider and take in to account for this endeavor? bear in mind, he has a budget of $1500. We would love to find an external bay that is Esata for fast speeds, can be bought for EIDE and SATA drives respectively and uses external power. Does any one know where i should start? google fails me, or maybe i fail@google.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What software are you using to do multiple LLFs at once? Most of the software that I'm aware of (mfg's disk tools, DBAN), will only do one drive at a time.
Depending on software compatibility, I would consider purchasing and using multiple USB-to-IDE/SATA adaptor cables. That way you have the flexibility to use either SATA or IDE, and since USB is hot-swappable, you don't need to worry about that aspect. Each adaptor also comes with it's own power brick, negating needing a hefty PSU for the PC. In fact, any old PC with a powered USB hub should be able to handle this setup. You would just need a power strip with a number of outlets for power bricks.

Edit: this is the type of device that I am talking about.

 

[quizzelbuck]

Bootnuke does multiple drives at once. Unattended.
We have been browsing external bays. None of them are universal, and we are curious about this USB 2.0 concern of whether or not an external drive acheves 480 MBPS for this sort of thing.... Its all very confusing.

 

[Modelworks]

Might want to research degausser.
They can erase a hard drive in under a minute and do it so well that its approved by the department of defense.
There are some high end models out there, but I also have seen some home made ones that work quite well.
They are basically just a large electric magnet that pulses through some coils that the hard drive is inside. You would simply take the hard drive , open the door on the degausser , put the hard drive inside, close the door, push the button, 60 secs later the HD is blank.

 

[quizzelbuck]

Yeah, we want to continue using the drives. Degaussing is out of the question.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: quizzelbuck
Bootnuke does multiple drives at once. Unattended.
We have been browsing external bays. None of them are universal, and we are curious about this USB 2.0 concern of whether or not an external drive acheves 480 MBPS for this sort of thing.... Its all very confusing.

When doing a low level format, the data bus speed is not a factor. The drive is being told to write over every sector X amount of times. IT is completely dependent on the drives write times. For what you are doing, you need a uber cheap PC, and some of theses.
That's going to be your cheapest easiest way to do it. Just plug and play, no swapping drives into swappable drive bays, no wasting money on unneeded hardware. Just plug in as many drives as you have USB ports and run BootandNuke. You can add USB hubs to add more drives. I've done 16 at once.

You really need to spend maybe $200 on the computer.
the slowest cheapest processor and motherboard, the cheapest smallest amount of memory and an optical drive is all you need.

 

[Zap]

For SATA, how about a case with a bunch of 5¼" drives and this trayless mobile rack?