Robert Nichols wrote: > On 9/24/22 9:31 PM, Tim via users wrote: >> On Sat, 2022-09-24 at 11:14 -0500, Robert Nichols wrote: >>> If you follow the recommendation to fill the device with >>> random data first >> >> When was that ever recommended, and where? >> >> While a logical thing to do, I've never seen anything or >> anyone ever say that. > > I recall that recommendation being in the cryptsetup FAQ, > but it doesn't seem to be there any more. The end of section 2.1 in the FAQ says: Alternatively, plain dm-crypt can be used for a very fast wipe with crypto-grade randomness, see Item 2.19 https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/-/wikis/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#2-setup Similar advvice has been given for as long as I can recall. For new hdd's, badblocks can be worth running before putting data on the disk and it can write a reasonably random pattern in the process: badblocks -b 4096 -c 10240 -s -w -t random -v /dev/sdx1 That requires more patience than most folks have, I suspect. It can take around 42 hours for a 16T disk. But then, it's only your data. ;) There's a long section on drive preparation on the Arch Linux wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt/Drive_preparation There are, as others already noted, caveats and limitations if using SSD's. -- Todd
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