At 8:21 PM -0700 8/21/2009, Jeffrey Engle wrote: >Interesting question just came to me, when zeroing a hard drive, >does it take longer to zero the drive if the drive is full of data? >If the hard drive has let's say 10% percent of data on it, will it >zero faster?
Normally, the entire disk or volume is erased(*), regardless of what user data is/was on it. Some drives can be erased faster because the utility issues a single command that does it all. Disk Utility has an "Erase Free Space" function that can take a variable amount of time. It creates a single gigantic file, that occupies all the *free* space on that volume, then zero's it one block at a time. You can do the same thing from Finder - just create a gigantic file, trash it, then "Secure empty trash". * "Erase" is one of those abused/generic terms. It means that the drive is told to write a data pattern, usually '00', onto a range of blocks. The abuse comes in when people refer to it as formatting or when it's actually an empty erase - no blocks are erased, the file system is just reset (which is actually "initializing"). - Dan. -- - Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
