Drive Eraser 6.2.4 - Improved hotswap for USB external drives

Bug fixes:

• ALBUS-5419 - Fix for a problem where ongoing erasures were lost when refreshing a list of USB external drives. No erasure is lost anymore in this context.
  • This problem occurred when enabling the "report per drive" mode & the hotswap (hotplug) functionality and erasing USB external drives.
  • Upon connecting or disconnecting a drive and refreshing the list of drives in the UI, ongoing erasures would occasionally be reset.
  • The problem came from a glitch in the drive re-detection (drives were re-detected as newly connected drives).
• ALBUS-5450 - Fix for a problem where resuming an erasure resulted in an unresponsive system.
  • The problem came from a glitch in the creation of the file containing the erasure resume information.

Recommendations:

• Below some recommendations when erasing USB drives with the hotswap (hotplug) enabled:
  • Erasure options:
    • Generally speaking, USB external drives consist of SATA drives within a case, the communication with the machine is performed through an internal USB-to-SATA adapter. Most adapters can pass read/write commands to the SATA drive but cannot pass properly firmware commands. Therefore, erasure standards such as "NIST 800-88 Purge" or "Blancco SSD Erasure" tend to fail on these devices. It is advised to erase these drives using normal overwriting standards as well as to disable the erasure options "Enforce Blancco SSD method on SSDs", "Erase remapped sectors" and "Remove hidden areas".
  • Report backup:
    • Whenever erasing several drives in an erasure station, it is always recommended to enable the "Automatic report backup" feature (via the Drive Eraser Configuration Tool) to store immediately the report of any completed erasure.
  • Drive batches:
    • It is advised to erase batches of USB drives having similar capacities and manufacturer. Having batches of drives of similar sizes will ensure that they are processed roughly at the same time.
    • Also, erase USB 2.0 drives in different batches than USB 3.0 drives.
  • Do not hurry to refresh:
    • When connecting a new drive, wait for a few seconds (5-10) before pressing the "Refresh drive list" button. This will allow the system to detect the drive properly before it is displayed in the UI.
    • In addition, if you don't see your newly connected drive after refreshing the list, do not rush into pressing the button again: some drives are slower than others and the detection can take up to a few minutes (on rather rare occasions).
  • Refresh frequency:
    • You can disconnect a drive, connect a new one then press the "Refresh drive list" button. However, the drive detection/display is faster if you refresh the drives after connecting/disconnecting a drive (e.g. disconnect -> refresh -> connect -> refresh).
  • USB hubs:
    • If you use USB hubs, make sure that they are powered hubs. Keep in mind that erasing N USB drives connected to a hub will divide the erasure speed by N approximately. Therefore, it is advised not to use USB hubs but to connect directly the drives to the USB ports of the machine.
  • Simultaneous erasures:
    • It is recommended not to erase more than 8 drives simultaneously. The maximum amount of drives you can erase also depends on your machine/erasure station specifications (processor, RAM, Motherboard, number of native USB ports, etc.).

Known issues:

• ALBUS-5451 - The erasure on some USB external drives (e.g. several Toshiba models - MQ04UBF100, MQ01UBD100, MQ03UBB300 -, Western Digital "My Passport", Samsung "Portable SSD T5") generates one (1) error when reaching ~137GB. This error fails the overall erasure.
  • There is no workaround for now.
  • We have identified the problem and a fix will be added in the next Drive Eraser major release (6.3.0).
• ALBUS-5418 - Some USB external drives are wrongly detected as USB/SSD drives. Most of these drives consist of HDD drives in a case and should not be detected as SSDs. If the setting "Enforce Blancco SSD method on SSDs" is enabled, these drives will be erased with the standard "Blancco SSD Erasure" that will most likely fail (check the Recommendations).
  • We recommend to disable the setting "Enforce Blancco SSD method on SSDs" if you are erasing USB external drives.
  • A fix for this problem will be added in the next Drive Eraser major release (6.3.0).
• ALBUS-5460 - When using a machine to erase several USB drives, we have noticed that if you leave the machine idling for a few days (no ongoing erasure), you may lose all completed erasures upon connecting a new drive and refreshing the list of drives.
  • We suspect that the drives are somehow in a suspended state during the period the machine is idling.
  • In order not to lose any erasure information, we recommend to enable the "Automatic report backup" feature via the Drive Eraser Configuration Tool.
• ALBUS-5467 - Occasionally, some USB drives do not react well when their erasure is paused.
  • We recommend avoiding pausing erasures unless it is mandatory.