Quickwipe

A secure and efficient block device wiping tool written in Go.

Features

• Fast block device wiping using cryptographically secure random data
• Direct I/O support for improved performance
• Built-in write speed benchmarking
• Configurable buffer sizes to optimize for different systems
• Skip-factor option for quicker wiping (trading security for speed)
• Auto-skip calculation to target a specific completion time
• Real-time progress tracking with speed and ETA display
• Multiple safety confirmation prompts to prevent accidental data loss

Installation

Using Go

go install github.com/f0o/quickwipe@latest

From Source

git clone https://github.com/f0o/quickwipe.git
cd quickwipe
go build -o quickwipe

Usage

# Basic usage - wipe a device completely
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX

# Quick wipe by only writing every 10th block
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX -skip 10

# Auto-determine skip factor to complete in about 20 hours
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX -auto-skip

# Specify custom target time for auto-skip (e.g., 5 hours)
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX -auto-skip -target-hours 5

# Use a larger buffer for potentially faster wiping
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX -buffer 8388608  # 8 MB buffer

# Skip confirmation prompts (use with caution!)
sudo ./quickwipe -device /dev/sdX -force

Command Line Options

Flag	Description	Default
-device	Path to block device (required)	-
-buffer	Buffer size in bytes	4 MB
-skip	Only write every Nth block (1 = wipe all)	1
-auto-skip	Auto-determine skip factor	false
-target-hours	Target completion time for auto-skip	20.0
-force	Skip confirmation prompts	false

How It Works

Go Wiper performs secure data wiping by:

1. Opening the specified block device with direct I/O when available
2. Filling a memory-aligned buffer with cryptographically secure random data
3. Writing this random data over the entire device (or every Nth block if skip factor > 1)
4. Using synchronized writes to ensure data is properly committed to the physical media

When using the auto-skip feature, Go Wiper first performs a benchmark to determine the write speed of your device, then calculates a skip factor that will allow the operation to complete in approximately the target time.

Safety Considerations

• IMPORTANT: This tool permanently and irreversibly destroys all data on the specified device
• Multiple confirmation prompts help prevent accidental data loss
• The tool verifies that the provided path looks like a block device (starts with /dev/)
• Use the -force flag with extreme caution - it bypasses safety confirmations

Requirements

• Go 1.23 or higher
• Root/sudo access (typically required for raw block device access)
• Linux operating system (for direct I/O support)

Disclaimer

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DATA LOSS OR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.