Erasing hard drive - is 7-pass deletion overkill?

I have an old iMac G5 PPC first generation that I had to stop using a few years ago when the video card failed. Today I hooked it up to my Macbook Pro (running OS 10.6.8) with a firewire and booted up the iMac in target disk mode to erase the iMac hard drive before getting rid of the iMac. I selected 7-pass erasure and erasure is in progress, but disk utility is giving me an estimated time of 22 hours for completion of the hard drive erasure. Progress of erasure is in the middle of the second pass of 7.
The IMac fans are running loudly, but they always did on this model and the iMac computer is cool. My MacBook Pro is fully charged and hooked up to the Power Adapter. It's a little warm, probably okay, but I'm wondering if the long period of time running disk utility to erase the iMac will be detrimental in any way to the MacBook.
Is 7-pass deletion overkill? I never stored financial information or social security numbers on the iMac (nor on my MacBook for that matter), but I've read that credit card information from buying things on line can sometimes be in the caches. The main thing that I'm concerned about erasing is passwords and keychain information.
Appreciate any input this community can offer.

Thanks, Kurt, that's what I figured. I don't actually care about wear and tear on the iMac drive. It hasn't been used in years. (I guess technically I could use it if I hooked it up to a monitor, as only the video card is shot, but it's a PPC not an Intel and too old to be compatible with modern software). I was actually originally considering just removing the iMac drive and hammering it to destroy it, cause the guy at the Apple Store who transferred the data from my iMac to my Macbook apparently forgot to return the iMac cord to the box the iMac was in. (He also transferred ALL the data from my iMac to my Macbook, including logs and such specific for the iMac and that shouldn't have been transferred, but that's another story; next time I'll transfer data to a new computer myself.) Without a cord, I obviously couldn't boot the iMac, and it's years too late to go back to the Apple Store and complain that they forgot to give me back my cord. But I found a compatible cord around the house and I feel safer zeroing out the hard drive.
I was more concerned about the Macbook that I used to boot the iMac in target disk mode. (Though actually the Macbook is fairly old, too and fully backed up, so if it goes, it will just give me an excuse to get a new Macbook. ). So your last answer is the last part of the info I was looking for.

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