Help with HPE server decommissioning

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ashtonaut

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#295707 16-Apr-2022 20:40

I need to decommission a HPE ML350 Gen9 tower server prior to selling it.

I have admin access to the ILO4 and ESXi web interfaces, but I’m not very familiar with either.

What’s the best way to go about decommissioning? Can I do some kind of ‘factory reset’ within both the ILO and ESXi systems to wipe or reset all existing configuration data? I don’t see anything obvious when I poke around. Perhaps I need to access one of the boot menus while the thing is starting up?

There are 3x 1.2TB drives, I’d prefer to wipe them but can always just pull them out and sell the server with no drives.

Thoughts or links to helpful resources are welcome!

(If anyone has interest in purchasing the server then let me know and I can give you the full spec list)

michaelmurfy

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#2903114 16-Apr-2022 21:16

ESXi is likely booting off a flash drive or SD card on the motherboard - just remove that.

Boot the server into DBAN (https://dban.org/) and use that to securely wipe all the attached drives.

Lastly, reset ILO back to factory settings: https://techlibrary.hpe.com/docs/iss/proliant_uefi/UEFI_TM_030617/s_reset_ilo_defaults.html

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ashtonaut

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#2903119 16-Apr-2022 22:00

Thanks, that gives me somewhere to start looking. I’ll check out the mobo and see if I can find a SD card or similar boot media. I’ve DBANned in the past so that bit sounds straightforward.

Is the server less useful/valuable if I simply remove the ESXi media and sell it without it? Can someone else ‘re-install’ it if they want to use ESXi in the future? Sorry, noob questions but I know very little about these types of servers.

michaelmurfy

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#2903121 16-Apr-2022 22:06

There is a free license for ESXi - I'd just sell the server without an operating system personally as anyone who is buying it (likely for a home lab) will have something in mind.

Post in offers and wanted as I am sure somebody here may want a tower server assuming it is at the right price!

ashtonaut

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#2903123 16-Apr-2022 22:27

Just the sort of advice that I was looking for - thanks!

I have now found the microSD card slot on the mobo and it has an HPE branded card in there which I expect will be the ESXi media, so I have somewhere to start fiddling…

Cheers

ashtonaut

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#2903460 18-Apr-2022 11:25

I'm currently erasing the drives using the HPE Smart Storage Administrator (DBAN didn't recognise the RAID controller).

As a test, I'm doing a one-pass 'write all zeroes' erase on all drives.

It's started without issues, and all drives now have green blinking lights indicating drive activity.

However, in SSA, the progress for all drives shows as 0.00% after more than 30 minutes.

How long should it take for SSA to erase a 1.2TB 10k rpm SAS HDD? I would have expected some progress by now?

Edit: Ignore this post. Just as I hit 'post' the progress moved to 1.00%. It looks like SSA only reports progress in 1% increments even though it shows progress to two decimal places. I just needed to be more patient...

Dynamic

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#2903723 19-Apr-2022 11:07

I'm a little late to this party, but for future reference if you boot a Gen9 or Gen10 server to Intelligent Provisioning mode, there should be a Secure Erase option that will reset the machine back to factory defaults and optionally erase all media.

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ashtonaut

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#2903729 19-Apr-2022 11:16

Ah. I didn’t investigate that menu, but perhaps I should have. I will let the drives finish wiping (will take about 3 days…) and then see if I can factory reset using the menu you refer to. Thanks.