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Bulk File Delete and Data Wiping
DiskBoss provides advanced bulk file delete and data wiping operations allowing one to securely wipe confidential information, schedule periodic file delete operations or automatically trigger policy-based file delete operations according to user-specified rules while saving file delete logs or exporting lists of deleted files to an SQL database. 
Users required to securely wipe confidential information are provided with a large number of different data wiping algorithms ranging from a simple, single-pass wipe to a powerful 7-pass, DOD 5220.22-M compliant data wiping algorithm. In addition, DiskBoss provides the ability to apply different types of delete operations for different types of files. For example, all types of documents and image files may be securely wiped while all other types of files just deleted. 
Enterprise customers and IT professions are provided with the ability to implement fully automated file retention policies using rule-based periodic file delete operations preconfigured to delete files based on file creation, last modification and/or last access dates. Finally, DiskBoss Server can be used to automatically enforce PCI and HIPPA compliance policies and perform file management operations on specific types of files and directories matching user-specified rules. File Delete and Data Wiping Options In order to open the advanced file delete and data wiping options dialog, press the 'Advanced Options' button located on the file delete dialog. The delete options dialog consists of the 'General' tab, 'Advanced' tab, 'Rules' tab and the 'Exclude' tab. The 'General' tab provides the ability to control the file scanning mode, the performance mode, the number of processing threads and a number of additional advanced file delete options explained later in this document. 
The 'Advanced' tab provides the ability to control a number of advanced file delete options including the data wiping mode, delete file logs, delete file logs mode, delete files logs history, and delete files logs directory. 
Deleting Specific File Types or File Categories The 'Rules' tab provides the ability to delete files matching one or more user-specified rules. For example, in order to delete all types of documents that were last accessed more than 3 years ago, select the 'Rules' tab, press the 'Add' button and add a rule matching files categorized as 'Documents, Books and Help Files' and then press the 'Add' button again and add a rule matching files that were last accessed more than 3 years ago. 
DiskBoss provides a large number of different types of file matching rules allowing one to precisely select which files to delete. In addition, DiskBoss Server, which runs in the background as a service, may be used to schedule periodic rule-based file delete operations to be executed at user-specified time intervals or at a specific time of day on selected days of week allowing one to implement automatic, rule-based retention policies required for Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA and PCI compliance purposes. Excluding Directories From File Delete Operations Sometimes, it may be required to exclude one or more subdirectories from a rule-based file delete operation. In order to exclude a directory from a file delete operation, open the advanced file delete options dialog, select the 'Exclude' tab and add one or more directories to be excluded from the file delete process. 
User-Defined File Delete and Data Wiping Operations One of the most powerful capabilities of DiskBoss is the ability to pre-configure advanced file delete operations as user-defined commands and then execute these commands in a single mouse click using the DiskBoss CUI application. In addition, the user is provided with the ability to execute pre-configured file delete operations using the DiskBoss command line utility or schedule periodic file delete operations using DiskBoss Server, which runs in the background as a service and allows one to implement fully automated file delete and data wiping operations. 
In order to add a new user-defined file delete operation, press the right mouse button over the 'Commands' pane, select the 'Add New - File Delete Command' menu item and enter a unique file delete command name. On the command inputs dialog, specify one or more directories or files to delete and press the 'Next' button. 
In order to execute a user-defined file delete command, just double-click on the command item in the 'Commands' pane. Another option is to create a desktop shortcut for the file delete operation and then click on the shortcut to execute the file delete operation without starting the DiskBoss GUI application. Finally, in order to execute the file delete operation using the command line utility, type the following command: diskboss -execute <Command Name> Saving Delete File Logs DiskBoss provides the ability to save full delete file logs to the pain text format or the Excel CSV format. In order to enable logs for a file delete operation, open the advanced file delete options dialog, select the 'Advanced' tab, enable the 'Save Delete Log Files' option, select an appropriate log file format and specify a directory where to save all log files.
DiskBoss provides the following log file modes:
According to the selected log files format, log files mode and the logs history, DiskBoss will keep a history of log files in the specified logs directory with each log file containing a date, time, status and a full file name for each deleted file. 
Exporting Delete File Logs to SQL Database Corporate customers and IT professionals are provided with the ability to export full delete file logs to a centralized SQL database. In order to enable SQL database logs for a file delete operation, open the advanced file delete options dialog, select the 'Advanced' tab, enable the 'Save Delete Log Files' option, select the SQL database logs format and specify an SQL table name prefix. In addition, open the 'Options' dialog and configure an ODBC data source to use to export delete file logs to the SQL database. 
DiskBoss provides the following SQL database log modes:
According to the selected delete file logs mode and the logs history, DiskBoss will keep a history of SQL database tables with each SQL database table containing a date, time, status and a full file name for each deleted file. 
Deleting Files Listed in User-Specified Text Files DiskBoss provides the ability to delete files listed in user-specified text files allowing one to perform fully automated or periodic bulk file delete operations. DiskBoss can read file names from user-specified text files and delete all files listed in one or more text files or in all text files located in a directory. 
In order to configure DiskBoss to delete files listed in user-specified text files, create a user-defined file delete command, select the 'Read Inputs From Files' mode and add one or more directories or text files to the input list. The specified text files should contain full names of files or directories to be deleted with a single name per line. During runtime, DiskBoss will read the specified text files and delete all files listed in the text files. Another option is to specify a directory which may contain a number of text files with lists of files to be deleted. In this case, DiskBoss will parse the directory, read all text files located in the directory and delete all files listed in the text files. 
DiskBoss allows one to perform bulk file delete operations periodically according to a user-specified time interval. In order to perform a user-defined file delete operation periodically, create a new periodic job and select the user-defined file delete command to be executed according to the specified time interval. In addition, DiskBoss provides the ability to automatically execute a user-defined file delete command when one or more text files with lists of files to be deleted are created in the specified inputs directory. In order to enable automatic execution of file deleted operations, add a disk change monitoring command, configure the real-time disk change monitor to monitor the directory with the text files listing files to be deleted, enable actions for the real-time disk change monitor and select the user-defined delete command to be executed after each newly created text file. 
During runtime, DiskBoss will continuously monitor the configured directory, detect newly created text files, read file names from these files and delete all listed files. Finally, in order to automatically delete text files with lists of files after each delete operation, open the user-defined file delete command, open the 'Options' dialog, select the 'General' tab and enable the 'Delete Input File Lists' option. 
Fully automated bulk file delete operations, performed without any user intervention, may be configured using DiskBoss Server, which runs as a service in the background, and is capable of continuously monitoring a directory for newly created text files and automatically delete all files listed in the created text files. Once DiskBoss Server is fully configured, the user just needs to copy one or more text files to the specified directory and DiskBoss Server will automatically perform all file delete operations in the background. File Delete Performance DiskBoss is capable of deleting vast numbers of files very fast using multiple CPUs to delete a number of files simultaneously. The performance of file delete operations depends on the type of the storage device and the hardware platform DiskBoss is installed on. For example, when deleting files from a fast NVMe SSD drive, DiskBoss reaches up to 28,000 Files/Sec with a single processing thread and scales up to 49,000 Files/Sec with 4 parallel file delete threads allowing one to delete up to 3 million files per minute. 
When deleting files stored on a SATA SSD drive, DiskBoss reaches up to 18,000 Files/Sec with a single processing thread and scales up to 32,000 Files/Sec with 4 parallel file delete threads allowing one to delete almost 2 million files per minute. 
Deleting files stored on a mechanical SATA HDD drive is much more time consuming and less scalable operation and in this case DiskBoss reaches up to 3,600 Files/Sec with a single file delete thread and scales up to 5,300 Files/Sec with 4 parallel processing threads. 
When deleting files stored on a NAS server via the network, the performance of file delete operations will be significantly affected by the network speed and more importantly the network latency. If the user needs to delete a large number of files located in a remote office via a long-distance, high-latency network, the performance will be slow and in order to improve the performance of file delete operations the user should open the delete command options dialog and configure up to 8-16 parallel file delete threads. 
When deleting files located on a fast NAS server via a local, low-latency Gigabit Ethernet network, DiskBoss reaches up to 1,300 Files/Sec with a single processing thread and scales up to 4,600 Files/Sec with 4 parallel file delete threads. Deleting millions of files stored in one or more NAS servers may be a very time consuming operation and one of the ways to speed-up the file delete process is to use a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet network. With the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet the performance of the DiskBoss file delete operations continues to scale up to 7,000 Files/Sec with 4 parallel file delete threads, which represents a 76% improvement compared to the standard Gigabit Ethernet. 
Due to a very wide adoption of laptops and NAS servers with built-in WiFi network interfaces, many users may consider deleting files stored in NAS servers via the wireless network. But, the latency of the wireless network is much higher and therefore it will take much more time to complete the file delete operation via the wireless network. The question is how much longer the user will need to wait and if it will save any significant amount of time to delete files via a wired network. 
Based on our benchmarks, via a 5 GHz wireless network, DiskBoss deletes up to 102 Files/Sec with a single file delete thread and scales up to 421 Files/Sec with 4 parallel file delete threads, which is approximately 10 times slower compared to the standard Gigabit Ethernet and almost 15 times slower when compared to the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. So, if the user needs to delete 100,000 files or more from a NAS server, a low-latency Gigabit Ethernet or 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet is required. Deleting Files Using the DiskBoss Command Line Utility In addition to the GUI application, DiskBoss Ultimate and DiskBoss Server provide a command line tool allowing one to perform file delete operations from batch files and shell scripts. The DiskBoss command line tool is located in the <ProductDir>/bin directory. Command Line Syntax: diskboss -execute <Command Name> This command executes the specified user-defined file delete command. diskboss -delete <Input 1> [ ... <Input X> <Options> ] This command deletes the specified files and directories.
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