The wipe_after_delete flag, viewed in the Administration Portal as the Wipe After Delete check box, enables the initialization of the virtual disk upon deletion. If it is set to false, which is the default, deleting the disk will open up those blocks for re-use but will not specifically wipe the data. It is possible for this data to be recovered because the blocks have not been returned to zero.

Enabling wipe_after_delete for virtual disks will wipe the blocks when the virtual disk is deleted, reverting the blocks to zero. This is more secure, and is recommended if the virtual disk has contained any sensitive data. This is a more intensive operation and users may experience degradation in performance and prolonged delete times.

The wipe_after_delete flag default can be changed to true using the engine configuration tool on the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager. Restart the engine for the setting change to take effect.