Data storage systems are arrangements of hardware and software that typically include multiple storage processors coupled to arrays of non-volatile data storage devices, such as magnetic disk drives, electronic flash drives, and/or optical drives. The storage processors service host I/O operations received from host machines. The received I/O operations specify storage objects (e.g. logical disks or “LUNs”) that are to be written, read, created, or deleted. The storage processors run software that manages incoming I/O operations and performs various data processing tasks to organize and secure the host data received from the host machines that is stored on the non-volatile data storage devices.
When the data storage system creates a new storage object, non-volatile data storage is allocated to the storage object from one or more drives in the array of non-volatile data storage devices. The non-volatile data storage allocated to the newly created storage object must be zeroed before it is accessed through newly created storage object, in order to prevent unauthorized access to data that was stored on the allocated portions of drive prior to creation of the new storage object.