Re: urandom is too slow

From: Alan Cox
Date: Tue Oct 30 2012 - 17:33:32 EST


> If you just want to wipe a disk, you shouldn't be using /dev/urandom for that
> purpose.

If you want to wipe a disk issue a security erase command via hdparm.
There is no guarantee that simply writing crap all over it will re-use
the same sectors of physical media, and for a flash drive it causes
massive wear and takes forever while a security erase is normally near
immediate.

Alan
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