How to erase SAS & SCSI drives

SAS and SCSI drives don't speak ATA, so the Secure Erase commands that work on SATA drives don't apply. Instead, they use the SCSI command set, which has its own erasure primitives.

SCSI SANITIZE

Modern SAS drives support the SCSI SANITIZE command — the SCSI-world equivalent of ATA Secure Erase. It tells the drive to erase itself at the hardware level, including reallocated sectors, and maps to NIST 800-88 Purge. It's the first choice when it's available.

Software overwrite as the fallback

Older SAS drives often lack a firmware sanitise command. For those, the standard approach is a software overwrite — writing zeros across the visible drive. tScrub uses nwipe for this path, which maps to NIST 800-88 Clear.

This is the one place where overwriting is genuinely the norm rather than a compromise: enterprise SAS drives frequently predate widespread firmware-erasure support.

Why SAS drives matter

SAS drives dominate in servers and storage arrays, so data-centre decommissioning almost always involves them. Because they're often wiped in bulk — sometimes hundreds at a time over PXE — unattended runs and automatic report upload matter as much as the erase method itself.

Erasing SAS drives with tScrub

1. Boot the appliance (USB or PXE) with the drives attached to an HBA or backplane.
2. tScrub detects each drive and checks for SCSI SANITIZE support.
3. It runs SANITIZE where supported, otherwise an nwipe overwrite.
4. Each drive's method and final status land in the report, ready to upload or push to your dashboard.

FAQ

Do SAS drives support ATA Secure Erase?

No. ATA commands only work on ATA (SATA) devices. SAS drives use SCSI commands, so the equivalent is SCSI SANITIZE — or a software overwrite where that isn't supported.

Can I wipe SAS drives in bulk?

Yes — that's the typical data-centre pattern. tScrub handles every drive it discovers in a single run and can run unattended over PXE with a pre-set Chain of Custody ID.