Patent ID: 7739462

Claim:
A method for shredding data stored on a storage drive, comprising: designating a set of possible shredding policies for each of a plurality of volumes stored on a storage drive attached through a device interface to a storage controller, the storage controller having a host interface to which a host is attached; creating a plurality of tables, each table storing a set of possible shredding policies; associating each table with one of the volumes, each table comprising a plurality of entries for each possible shredding policy, including: a first entry indicating a number of write passes to be performed on a location of the storage drive in which the associated volume is stored; and a second entry indicating a pattern to write on the location of the storage drive in which the associated volume is stored; storing each table in the storage controller; receiving in the storage controller a command from the host to shred a designated volume according to a selected one of the shredding policies in the table associated with the designated volume, the policy being indicated in the shredding command; accessing the associated table to obtain the number of write passes to be performed and the pattern to write on the location of the storage drive in which the designated volume is stored; and executing the shredding command in the storage controller to shred the designated volume according to the indicated policy.