If the disk has built in encryption, so the storage controller on the disk handles the encrypt/decrypt cycle but presents as an unencrypted disk for all intents and purposes to the user. All thats needed to wipe the disk is to delete the encryption keys. Its a pretty common feature in enterprise disks and i quite like it. Saves a lot of time when decom time rolls arround
You don’t need to encrypt empty disk space. Formatting a disk only writes some data structures here and there, leaving vast majority of the disk unchanged.
It’s slower to encrypt and then delete the keys than it is to zero the drive, yes. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work.
You encrypt your data (based on the pre-generated key) piecemeal as you fill the drive over the course of years, then you delete the key when retiring the drive, so you can make a drive unreadable in seconds.
You keep the drive encrypted while you are using it, and then when you want to wipe the data, you just wipe the part of the drive holding data related to computing the encryption key. You don’t touch the rest of the drive, but without the encryption key it’s effectively random noise.
How computing a result from a ?4096?bits key for each byte goes faster than writing 0 for each byte?
If the disk has built in encryption, so the storage controller on the disk handles the encrypt/decrypt cycle but presents as an unencrypted disk for all intents and purposes to the user. All thats needed to wipe the disk is to delete the encryption keys. Its a pretty common feature in enterprise disks and i quite like it. Saves a lot of time when decom time rolls arround
You are jumping to a point in time after what I am asking:
“all you need” is to delete a key -> No, you need to encrypt the disk before, which is the step prior, and without it, deleting a key change a thing…
So basically, the part “hardware” built-in could make sense, but the guy didn’t specify any if this…
In other words, zeroing the disk is going to be faster “in normal circumstances”.
You don’t need to encrypt empty disk space. Formatting a disk only writes some data structures here and there, leaving vast majority of the disk unchanged.
It’s slower to encrypt and then delete the keys than it is to zero the drive, yes. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work.
You encrypt your data (based on the pre-generated key) piecemeal as you fill the drive over the course of years, then you delete the key when retiring the drive, so you can make a drive unreadable in seconds.
You keep the drive encrypted while you are using it, and then when you want to wipe the data, you just wipe the part of the drive holding data related to computing the encryption key. You don’t touch the rest of the drive, but without the encryption key it’s effectively random noise.