Can an SSD be securely deleted of data?

[AaLF]

Can an SSD be securely deleted of data? I read somewhere that there is no way to be sure one has scrubbed it clean as it's digital unlike the old HDDs.

 

[whs]

You can issue a Clean All command. That will write all zeros on the SSD. It is not really recommended because your future write commands will be slowed dowm, but it would make is difficult to recover the data - except with forensic tools.

 

[OvenMaster]

And this is one reason why I refuse to buy an SSD. At least with a spinner I can erase everything and know it's gone.

 

[Layback Bear]

I have wrote Zeros using Partition Wizard Mini Tool to 3 ssd and have not had a problems with any of them.
After that I check them with Intel ssd ToolBox and they are at 100%.
I don't baby ssd's. I just use them.
I use Intel ssd's that have a 5 year warranty. If they die they die.

 

[whs]

Jack is right. There is too much fuzz being made about SSDs. Just use them like any old disk and you will be OK.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
The 2 ssd utilities I've seen a Samsung and a Crucial both have secure erase.

 

[maxseven]

Anyone interested in this subject (especially the paranoid) needs to know about PrivaZer, which not only will clean your drives (even RAM!) of personal data (in all sorts of hidden places I never knew about before) but also has multiple options for how erasures are done, from simple "1-pass zeros" to OMG "6 pass USA Army 380-19" (dunno what it is, sounds good doesn't it).

It is donation-ware i.e. can be free if you're cheap (I am not!).

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

And this is one reason why I refuse to buy an SSD. At least with a spinner I can erase everything and know it's gone.

That is more fallacy than fact. HDDs and SSDs are completely different beasts: you can't treat one the way you do the other. With both SSDs and HDDs, you can't just delete data and expect it to be unrecoverable. With HDDs, you can overwrite data with 1s and 0s to be sure it is unrecoverable without harming the HDD. You can do the same with SSDs but that would use up some the finite amount of writes available (which actually is less of a problem than what most people believe). However, there are ways to do a secure erase on SSDs that won't unnecessarily reduce the write life of an SSD, the easiest being to use the function provided in the disk utilities provided with most SSDs.

 

[AddRAM]

And this is one reason why I refuse to buy an SSD. At least with a spinner I can erase everything and know it's gone.

Who cares, what do you keep Government secrets on your drive ? That is the lamest excuse ever not to get an ssd.

And no, you can`t erase everything on a spinner, whoever told you that ?

The only way to get rid of data off a spinner is to drill 1/2" holes threw in then throw it in 500 feet of Ocean

 

[Layback Bear]

Intel's ssd Tool Box also has a Secure Erase. I will use it next time to see if things go quicker.

Take a think on ram. How many times is it wrote to and then erased. Ram of course is solid state just like a ssd.
Does one remove the ram to save it for a later date? Heck no, use it if you got it. Find something else to worry about like global warming, bobby socks, or maybe Pluto.

I have no secrets on my computers. Well if I do they are also secret to me.
I did the erase because I used the ssd's for testing Linux and when I did formats their was always a little bit of Linux still on the drive. I want the ssd's to be completely clean to make thing work better for my next little test journey. I did notice when I did my last Clone on a wiper ssd things went faster with no interruption.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...Does one remove the ram to save it for a later date? Heck no, use it if you got it...

Unless you are referring to removing RAM to preserve data, then yes, probably no; it wouldn't be especially reliable for that, if at all. However, people do remove RAM and save it for a later date. For example, I removed the 4GB RAM in one of my notebooks and replaced it with 8GB. I kept the old RAM so I could get quickly get the computer up and running again should the new RAM ever fail.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

And this is one reason why I refuse to buy an SSD. At least with a spinner I can erase everything and know it's gone.

Who cares, what do you keep Government secrets on your drive ? That is the lamest excuse ever not to get an ssd.

And no, you can`t erase everything on a spinner, whoever told you that ?

The only way to get rid of data off a spinner is to drill 1/2" holes threw in then throw it in 500 feet of Ocean

More fallacy. You can get rid of data on a spinner by overwriting it with ones and zeroes. In the past, it took multiple passes to ensure the data was unrecoverable but, with today's denser drives, a single pass is all it takes.

 

[Layback Bear]

Lady you missed my point. My point wasn't the fact that one can put hardware on the shelf for emergencies in case something fails. I have backup ssd's and other hardware doing nothing just in case I will need them.

Ram is wrote to and cleaned many many times and yet still lives for years. In my opinion ssd's will last for years also if one just treats them in a normal fashion like they would a hard drive with few exceptions. I have also defragged a ssd just to see what would happen. In my case what I found out was not much.
It didn't hurt anything but it also didn't help. Ssd's work so fast as they are a defrag was useless. Windows 7 has no problem finding things on a ssd no matter how they are located.
Today's high quality ssd's are plain and simple great things in my opinion.

Every now and then I boot my one and only hard drive with a Clone installed just to remind me of the speed difference. Then I remember back when I had a old HP Work Station with dual Xeons. It was very quick for it's day but the hard drive sounded like some one mowing a gravel driveway. It still worked as it should, they were just noisy way back when. Things just keep getting better.
Ssd's are amazing. Ssd's have got over their growing stages and have become the new standard. Another plus is the prices keep going down while new technology are added to them.
The day will come when people will just pop in a ssd and do all their backup's and think nothing of it. They will look at hard drives like I look back on my old HP Work Station. It was great in it's day. It now lies in the computer happy hunting ground.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Lady you missed my point. My point wasn't the fact that one can put hardware on the shelf for emergencies in case something fails. I have backup ssd's and other hardware doing nothing just in case I will need them...

I didn't totally miss the point which is why I couched my response.

...Ram is wrote to and cleaned many many times and yet still lives for years. In my opinion ssd's will last for years also if one just treats them in a normal fashion like they would a hard drive with few exceptions. I have also defragged a ssd just to see what would happen. In my case what I found out was not much.
It didn't hurt anything but it also didn't help. Ssd's work so fast as they are a defrag was useless...

RAM and SSDs are not the same thing. RAM doesn't have a finite write life whereas SSDs do, though SSDs write life is now much higher than most people will ever have to worry about. However, it's so simple to minimize the number of writes to an SSD, there is no point in not doing do. One example is to not frequently defrag SSDs. Defragging does use up some of the finite number of writes available to an SSD. While it is a myth that SSDs will never ever need defragging, they will not need anywhere remotely as close as many times as an HDD will. SSDs are far better than HDDs at handling fragmentation but even they will eventually reach a point where they will slow down or have other problems. Once every year or two, maybe even three for one lightly used, would be plenty. For example, I defragged the SSD in my desktop machine, which runs 24/7, after a little over two years of operation. I seemed to be a bit snappier after that. My notebooks, on the other hand, get used only when I go on a trip (I only take one with me; the other two are spares). I don't even bother to fire them up and update them until about a week before I leave. I doubt I will ever defrag those SSDs...ever.

...Today's high quality ssd's are plain and simple great things in my opinion...

No argument there!

...Another plus is the prices keep going down while new technology are added to them.
The day will come when people will just pop in a ssd and do all their backup's and think nothing of it. They will look at hard drives like I look back on my old HP Work Station. It was great in it's day. It now lies in the computer happy hunting ground.

That day is not all that far away. Many people are already using machines with nothing but SSDs in them. My notebooks don't have a need for a lot of storage so the single 500GB SSDs I have in them is sufficient for my needs. 1TB SSDs are now available for the same price I paid for the first 500GB SSD I got. Even 2TB SSDs are now available for less than an arm and a leg. I eagerly awaiting the 4TB SSDs that Samsung will be releasing in a few months. Once the initial price goes down a bit, I'm going to be all over them like fleas on a stray dog. I'm hoping I will never need to buy another HDD again, ever.

 

[Callender]

Anyone interested in this subject (especially the paranoid) needs to know about PrivaZer, which not only will clean your drives (even RAM!) of personal data (in all sorts of hidden places I never knew about before) but also has multiple options for how erasures are done, from simple "1-pass zeros" to OMG "6 pass USA Army 380-19" (dunno what it is, sounds good doesn't it).

It is donation-ware i.e. can be free if you're cheap (I am not!).

Inexperienced users need to be careful with PrivaZer as going ahead and running a full clean without understanding configuration can cause issues that are hard to resolve. See:

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/316912-privazer-pc-cleaner.html

 

[maxseven]

Anyone interested in this subject (especially the paranoid) needs to know about PrivaZer, which not only will clean your drives (even RAM!) of personal data (in all sorts of hidden places I never knew about before) but also has multiple options for how erasures are done, from simple "1-pass zeros" to OMG "6 pass USA Army 380-19" (dunno what it is, sounds good doesn't it).

It is donation-ware i.e. can be free if you're cheap (I am not!).

Inexperienced users need to be careful with PrivaZer as going ahead and running a full clean without understanding configuration can cause issues that are hard to resolve. See:

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/316912-privazer-pc-cleaner.html

Thanks for the link and the write-up. Although I too use CCleaner as my day-to-day cleaning tool, and only occasionally use PrivaZer (with selected options), I have never had any problems with it, but agree it is a very advanced utility that is not for average users.

The full monty would be used by the most paranoid, or by those who were e.g. selling their PCs or giving them to family members i.e. otherwise intact with programs and etc.

 

[Callender]

I too use CCleaner as my day-to-day cleaning tool, and only occasionally use PrivaZer (with selected options), I have never had any problems with it, but agree it is a very advanced utility that is not for average users.

The full monty would be used by the most paranoid, or by those who were e.g. selling their PCs or giving them to family members i.e. otherwise intact with programs and etc.

I use it on a regular basis too and without any problems but any time PrivaZer gets a mention - other members are tempted to try it and run a full cleanup without configuring settings then wonder why they've lost their folder view settings, jumplists and so on.