Methods of sanitizing a flash-based data storage device

摘要

A data storage device includes one or more non-volatile, blockwise erasable data storage media and a mechanism for sanitizing the media in response to a single external stimulus or in response to a predetermined physical or logical condition. Optionally, only part of the media is sanitized, at a granularity finer than the blocks of the medium. Setting a flag in an auxiliary nonvolatile memory enables an interrupted sanitize to be detected and restarted. Optionally, a “death certificate” verifying the sanitizing is issued. Preferably, the media are configured in a manner that allows atomic operations of the sanitizing to be effected in parallel.

主权项

1. A computer implemented method for sanitizing a storage device, comprising:
receiving a sanitize command to sanitize at least a portion of a data storage medium within the storage device, wherein the data storage medium includes a plurality of sub-arrays each having a plurality of storage chips and the portion of the data storage medium includes storage chips from the plurality of sub-arrays; performing the sanitizing of the plurality of storage chips within the plurality of sub-arrays forming the portion of the data storage medium within the storage device, in response to the sanitize command, the sanitizing executing a sanitize method, wherein the sanitizing is performed in parallel on each of the plurality of storage chips within the plurality of sub-arrays defined in the portion of the data storage medium, the sanitize method defined by one or more sanitize parameters, wherein the sanitize parameters are identified based on the sanitize command; wherein when an unexpected power interruption occurs during performance of the sanitizing of the storage device,
determining sanitize status of the plurality of storage chips within the plurality of sub-arrays upon powering up the storage device after the unexpected power interruption; andresuming the sanitizing of the portion of the data storage medium within the storage device, wherein the storage device is a non-volatile storage device.