Fiber channel arrays

prototype476

I realize this post concerns technology, but the thought in the forefront of my mind is "help!" so, I hope it belongs in this section of the forums. I'll try to keep this to the point, therefore.
I have a sizable quantity of Seagate fiber channel drives I need to perform data destruction on. The EMC arrays they arrived in are not recognized by Blancco, my DDS software, (and I cannot use any other software for the purpose) and in the Sun arrays I have, these 181GB and 73GB drives are recognized as 1.1GB when they are recognized at all, but on the last try of the eight in the array only four showed up.
I know this is a bit specific, but...this is a last resort. It cannot hurt to ask, I figure.
Perhaps the firmware on the drives only supports the original EMC arrays? Perhaps the FC adapter we have isn't compatible? Does anyone have any idea, any experience with this sort of problem? We hardly ever get in FC drives, and what little I can think of to try hasn't worked. If we do not get these drives wiped by the end of Friday the 5th, firings may begin. Dark times indeed.

The majority of the drives are Seagate Barracudas, ST1181677FCV, and ST173404FCV. I don't know what else might be of use, I'm too stressed out here to concentrate any longer. The DDS crew here has spent most of a day on this one already, and the head of the department is out on medical leave, so things are not running as smoothly as they should. Anyway.

If, somehow, someone has some idea, my thanks. My thanks anyway for reading this!

EclecticGroove

I'm assuming you have to do a non destructive wipe of these drives? Otherwise the solutions would be far easier, but.. just checking.

Creepy

Well outside my area of expertise but have you tried calling Blancco?

Tried wiping them as 1.1 gigs? Tried using the array bios stuff to reformat them to start with and then seeing if the Sun array sees them as full capacity afterwards? (I'm guessing here but you sound desperate) I'd think as long as Blancco was eventually run on the drives you'd be set, regardless of what you had to do to get the drives/array to recognize.

Good luck & sorry if these are dumb suggestions.

PirateJon

I have a sizable quantity of Seagate fiber channel drives I need to perform data destruction on.

Industrial shredder at most any metal salvage place. Throw them in, watch them get turned into tiny metal bits, walk away.

prototype476

My thanks to you all for the ideas. Piratejon - Indeed, I wish I could, there is such a place a few blocks from here...but the deal we have for DDS uses Blancco's reporting aspects to confim the destruction, with reports of individual serials and drive sizes for verification. Hell of handy, when it's working. Not that this is Blancco's fault, the Sun array won't recognize them even before the software loads, which leads me to Creepy's post, which initially made me leap out of my chair and run to the arrays, before I remembered that the array doesn't see them in the first place...so I can neither format them nor call Blancco. If we had other FC arrays to work with, perhaps we could use one of those, and that might see the drives, but we've only the two; everything else we have is SCSI. Piles of SCSI arrays, and only two for FC. Argh. Stress and desperation, and all that. ::chuckle:: Thanks again, though! All advice appreciated.

Creepy

I'd still call Blancco. You get the right support guy and he may have seen this problem before and know a workaround. If nothing else it's someone new to bounce ideas off.

Again, good luck and sorry I couldn't be more help.

EclecticGroove

Yeah, the only guys here who use Fiber Channel stuff are the AD and E-mail services guys. And they all come in package deals Drives+Chassis. They send extra drives out for replacement when they die, but aside from that? All drive wipes are done within the array itself, no hooking up to other devices.

Like the above poster said, might as well call someone, maybe they have seen that specific issue. Other than them it would be a call to the drive manufacturer to see what can be done about it.

PirateJon

deal we have for DDS uses Blancco's reporting aspects to confim the destruction, with reports of individual serials and drive sizes for verification

What do you do with failed drives then? If a drive has a failed on-board controller or power jack, the data would be on the physical platter but inaccessible. Just like now.

embrik

PirateJon wrote: »

deal we have for DDS uses Blancco's reporting aspects to confim the destruction, with reports of individual serials and drive sizes for verification

What do you do with failed drives then? If a drive has a failed on-board controller or power jack, the data would be on the physical platter but inaccessible. Just like now.

That was my thought. A lot of data destruction companies will provide paperwork for physically destroyed drives. Just call and ask 'em. The company we sometimes use gives us certificates of destruction (or something along those lines )

prototype476

Embrik, Piratejon, excellent point, we do indeed scan serials of failed drives and shred them. The problem now is that after we do the data destruction we'll be reselling the functional equipment, and for small drives we might give up, but the problem children are 8 two-terrabyte EMC arrays, which we can't afford to physically destroy. I'm definitely feeling the destroy-destroy-destroy thing here, though. It's been a long day.
Creepy, I hadn't thought about the fact that they might have heard of this problem before, I'll give Blancco a call tomorrow first thing, and if that fails I might as well hit up Seagate as EclecticGroove suggests. I'd call EMC, but we've spoken in the past about our software and their hardware and the dissagreements betwixt, with no resolution.
I very much appreciate calm voices of reason in here amongst the screaming of server fans and the grinding of my teeth, so again my thanks to you all.

PirateJon

8 two-terrabyte EMC arrays

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.