Wiping SSD drives?

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stanw

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Nov 16, 2008
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I heard that you can not wipe an SSD drive the same way that you can with a hard drive and the data remains retrievable even after wiping it. Is this true?

Thanks.
 
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itzdanielp
No, it is not true.

If you wipe the data securely it works the same way as a traditional HDD.

However, if you just "format" the drive you only remove the FAT (File Allocation Table, or table of contents) which tells the computer where to find the files. All the information still remains. This is true for both SSD's and traditional HDD's.

If you want to securely erase a drive, you are going to want to get software which will overwrite the entire disk, I am sure there are free ones online.

However, with SSD's you have something that traditional HDD's don't have. Each memory block can only be written to a finite amount of times, and once you reach that limit that cell is no longer available to be written. So overwriting every...
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itzdanielp

itzdanielp

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Aug 23, 2011
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No, it is not true.

If you wipe the data securely it works the same way as a traditional HDD.

However, if you just "format" the drive you only remove the FAT (File Allocation Table, or table of contents) which tells the computer where to find the files. All the information still remains. This is true for both SSD's and traditional HDD's.

If you want to securely erase a drive, you are going to want to get software which will overwrite the entire disk, I am sure there are free ones online.

However, with SSD's you have something that traditional HDD's don't have. Each memory block can only be written to a finite amount of times, and once you reach that limit that cell is no longer available to be written. So overwriting every memory block will drastically lower the life of your SSD, especially if you do 7 passes (normally suggested).
 
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Dereck47

Dereck47

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Jan 20, 2011
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No, that's not the same as Secure Erase.
The 7-Pass or 35-Pass writes data to the drive 7 times (or 35 times) to overwrite any existing data. It's similar to what formatting a drive does.

When a Secure Erase command is sent to a SSD an electrical charge is sent to all of the cells in all of the NAND chips of the drive. The electrical charge resets all of the cells. It takes about a second or 2 to complete.

After the Secure Erase is done the drive is in a blank, fresh-out-of-the-box condition.
 
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mbarnes86

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Sep 16, 2010
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Hi

On a normal modern hard disk a Format (with quick format un-ticked) on Windows Vista or latter should over write every sector which is readable so removing all data.

This can not be done on the boot drive from within Windows so a Windows DVD or recovery CD (or USB) will do if you do not have a DBAN CD

Only a single pass of DBAN or similar is needed unless you are paranoid or the data would endanger lives or could loss of millions of $$$

If you are really paranoid or the data is critical put the disk into a giant shredder, or crush with a sledge hammer or use a welding torch (gas or arc) on it.

regards

Mike Barnes
 
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itzdanielp

itzdanielp

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Aug 23, 2011
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This isn't quite correct. While a "non quick" format is more secure than the quick format (which just overwrites the FAT) most if not all files can still be recovered after a full format.

The only secure way is by destroying the drive, or writing new info over the sectors, which takes hours if not days.
 
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