Dell PS Series 10.x firmware Secure Erase Limitations
Summary: If you are not decommissioning your PS Series array, then the "Secure Erase" feature should be disabled.
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This article is not tied to any specific product.
Not all product versions are identified in this article.
Symptoms
The Secure Erase feature enables Dell PS Series (EqualLogic) storage arrays to securely erase data so that it cannot be recovered. First introduced with PS Series 10.x firmware, the intended use case was for decommissioning arrays. Secure Erase is achieved by writing zeroes to the data that is on the disk when a volume is deleted or moved from the array. This feature supports member delete, member vacate, and page move.
Limitations
If used when not decommissioning an array, the Secure Erase process may impact system resources and I/O timings while the data is being cleared. The deleted blocks are not immediately available for reallocation until cleared by the secure erase process.
Under certain conditions, such as FST (free space trouble), when old snapshots are deleted automatically, or if some pages are moved out of the system, clearing the data might delay recovery from the FST process.
Cause
The background process to erase the volume data is performed at a lower priority to help maintain host I/O. However, if used during production, pool free space available and performance may be impacted. The space that is gained by erasing data is not returned to the pool until all the blocks are processed. If Secure Erase is used in environments relying heavily on thin provisioned volumes, customers could experience both performance issues and volumes going offline due to insufficient free space to grow the thin provisioned volumes.
Resolution
Disabling “Secure Erase”
Disabling Secure Erase can be performed from either the UI or Group CLI.UI:
Customers can disable this feature by clearing the Enable Secure Erase checkbox from the Group Configuration Advanced tab.
Group CLI:
Log in to the group using the ‘grpadmin’ account.At the Group CLI prompt, enter:
EQLGroupName > grpparams secure-delete disable.
Affected Products
EqualLogic PS4100, EqualLogic PS4100E, EqualLogic PS4100X, EqualLogic PS4100XV, EqualLogic PS4100XVS, EqualLogic PS4110, EqualLogic PS4110E, Equallogic PS4110X, Equallogic PS4110XV, EqualLogic PS4210XV35, Equallogic PS6000, Equallogic PS6000e
, Equallogic PS6000s, Equallogic PS6000x, Equallogic PS6000xv, Equallogic PS6000xvs, Equallogic PS6010, Equallogic PS6010e, Equallogic PS6010s, Equallogic PS6010x, Equallogic PS6010xv, Equallogic PS6010xvs, EqualLogic PS6100, EqualLogic PS6100E, EqualLogic PS6100S, EqualLogic PS6100X, Equallogic PS6100XS, EqualLogic PS6100XV, EqualLogic PS6100XVS, EqualLogic PS6110E, Equallogic PS6110X, Equallogic PS6110XV, EqualLogic PS6210XV3.5, Equallogic PS6500, Equallogic PS6500e, EqualLogic PS6500ES, EqualLogic PS6500X, Equallogic PS6510, Equallogic PS6510e, EqualLogic PS6510X, EqualLogic PSS100E
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Article Properties
Article Number: 000184920
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 29 Jul 2025
Version: 3
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