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Dell Data Wipe (NIST 800-88r1) Supported Hard Drive Sanitize Actions

Summary: Information about supported commands for Dell Data Wipe.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.

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Dell Data Wipe Command Information

In general, the sanitize requirements that are pasted below are manufacture implementation requirements. Dell Data wipe issues the commands in the table below to the hard drive.


The drive manufacturer will implement the wipe behavior to meet the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) specification. The BIOS is only issuing the command, and not directly telling the drive how to perform the command. The BIOS does not control the drive behavior once the wipe commands are issued to the drive.


Depending on the media, different commands are issued. The result will be a Purge, or a Clear, depending on the media type (rotating hard drive, or solid state drive (SSD)) (Table 1).

 
Media Command Type NIST 800-88r1  
ATA Hard Drive Enhanced Security Erase Purge
ATA SSD Enhanced Security Erase Clear
eMMC Erase/Sanitize Purge
M.2 PCIE SSD Enhanced Security Erase Clear
NVMe PCIE SSD NVM Format
(Format NVM)
Purge

Table 1 – Hard Drive Data Wipe Commands



NIST 800-88r1 guideline: NIST Special Publication 800-88 - Guidelines for Media Sanitization External Link states the following:


Clear, Purge, and Destroy are actions that can be taken to sanitize media. The sanitization categories are defined as:

  • Clear applies logical techniques to sanitize data in all user-addressable storage locations. For protection against simple non-invasive data recovery techniques; typically applied through the standard Read and Write commands to the storage device, such as by rewriting with a new value or using a menu option to reset the device to the factory state (where rewriting is not supported).

  • Purge applies physical or logical techniques that render Target Data recovery infeasible using state-of-the-art laboratory techniques.

  • Destroy renders Target Data recovery infeasible using state-of-the-art laboratory techniques and results in the subsequent inability to use the media for storage of data.

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Article Properties
Article Number: 000186133
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 04 May 2021
Version:  1
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