A solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades y'all can make to your PC. An SSD was one time a trade-off between disk space, cost, and the speed boost, but large capacity SSDs are at present cheaper than ever.

Similar other types of flash retentivity, you tin can merely write to an SSD so many times, which presents an consequence if you want to wipe the solid-state drive clean. Using a regular tool tin damage the SSD, reducing its lifespan.

And then, how do you securely erase an SSD without damaging the bulldoze?

Does Secure Erase Damage Your SSD?

Generally speaking, you should never have to perform any maintenance on your solid-state drive. SSDs are designed with self-sufficiency in mind, using a series of algorithms and fail-safes that the manufacturer puts in place to maximize drive life and ensure data is discarded correctly.

What Is SSD Wear Levelling?

The first protection comes in the course of wear leveling, designed to evenly distribute stored data between SSD blocks to ensure fifty-fifty wear. Wear leveling is ane of the major differences between a regular magnetic hard drive and a solid-state bulldoze.

A traditional hard drive stores files in physical locations on a magnetic platter. The operating organization indexes the file locations in a file system and accesses the data using a mechanical arm. Whereas a solid-state drive is a form of flash memory, like a USB pollex drive—merely with a much larger capacity.

Instead of writing to a location on a physical disc, an SSD writes the data to a block. Each write procedure causes the memory to degrade or "wear."

While the SSD uses a file system to communicate information storage locations to the host system, it also re-shuffles the data to ensure even article of clothing beyond all retention blocks. Changes fabricated for article of clothing leveling record to a separate file map.

In other words, SSDs practise not utilise any physically indexable locations, and software cannot specifically target sectors on the disk. Basically, your calculator has no mode of telling "where" that information was just copied to.

What Is SSD Trim, and Should Y'all Utilize Information technology?

Your SSD constantly moves data around to comply with wear leveling, ensuring all blocks habiliment at an fifty-fifty rate. What that does hateful, nonetheless, is that some common secure file deletion methods don't work equally you would look. At to the lowest degree, not how they piece of work on a magnetic hard bulldoze.

Solid-land drives use a specific command to keep on acme of file deletion, known every bit TRIM. The TRIM control marks the blocks of information the SSD is no longer using, ready for wiping internally. In bones terms, this means when you delete a file in your operating organisation, the TRIM command wipes the space and makes it available for use.

The side by side fourth dimension your operating system attempts to write something to that space, information technology tin can practice then immediately. Simply put, your SSD manages your discarded data.

The difference in how an SSD handles data deletion and vesture leveling is why regular secure bulldoze wiping programs are non recommended for an SSD. You will somewhen write 1s and 0s to the drive, but information technology will crusade a significant corporeality of wear to the drive retentiveness in the procedure.

Because the drive writes all new incoming information to various blocks, depending on its needs, only the drive knows where this data is written. And then, secure deletion tools actually harm SSDs by performing an unnecessary number of additional writes.

For a much more than detailed wait at TRIM and garbage collection, you should read our commodity on the usefulness of TRIM on modern SSDs.

How to Securely Erase an SSD

Correct now, y'all're probably thinking, "How do I deeply wipe my SSD, then?" Thankfully, it is all the same possible to securely wipe your SSD using software and without damaging the bulldoze. The departure is that instead of securely wiping all data from the drive, an SSD "resets" to a make clean memory state (non factory state, which implies at that place is no drive wear!).

The "ATA Secure Erase" command instructs the drive to flush all stored electrons, a process that forces the drive to "forget" all stored data. The command resets all available blocks to the "erase" state (which is also the state the TRIM command uses for file deletion and block recycling purposes).

Importantly, the ATA Secure Erase command does not write annihilation to the SSD, unlike a traditional secure wipe tool. Instead, the command causes the SSD to utilize a voltage spike to all available flash retentivity blocks in unison. The procedure resets every available cake of space in a single operation, and the SSD is "clean."

Using the ATA Secure Erase command does use a whole program-erase wheel for your SSD. So yes, it does cause a small amount of wear, but it is negligible compared to a traditional secure wipe tool.

Secure Erase Your SSD Using a Manufacturer Tool

Most manufacturers supply software to use with their SSD. The software usually includes a firmware update tool, and secure erase tool, and perhaps a drive cloning option. While it'south impossible for MakeUseOf to cheque the software of every manufacturer, you tin can find a list of tools for the major SSD manufacturers below.

  • Intel Solid-State Bulldoze Toolbox
  • Toshiba OCZ SSD Utility
  • Corsair SSD Toolbox
  • Samsung Wizard SSD Tool
  • SanDisk SSD Dashboard
  • Crucial SSD Storage Executive
  • Western Digital SSD Dashboard
  • Seagate SeaTools bootable SSD utility

The SSD manufacturer'southward management app is the first place to bank check for a secure erase tool. Nonetheless, some manufacturers practise not include the ATA Secure Erase command as an choice. Furthermore, in some cases, your SSD model may not support the command. If that is the instance with your SSD, move to the adjacent section.

Secure Erase Your SSD Using Parted Magic

Although the SSD manufacturer tool may come up with a secure erase tool, many experts advise using Parted Magic instead. Indeed, Parted Magic features every bit an essential tool to keep in your PC repair USB toolkit.

Parted Magic is a whole Linux distribution featuring all way of disk erasing and division managing tools. The tool does cost $11, but you lot take access to the suite forever, whenever you demand information technology, and it's one of the best means to securely erase an SSD.

Parted Magic is a bootable Linux environs, meaning you install it to a USB drive and boot from there. Here's a quick listing of exactly what you need to do:

  1. Download Parted Magic and create a mountable USB drive using Unetbootin.
  2. Boot the drive and cull option 1, Default Settings.
  3. Once booted head to Start (bottom-left) > System Tools > Erase Deejay.
  4. Choose the Internal:Secure Erase command writes zeroes to unabridged data surface area choice, and so confirm the drive you want to erase on the next screen.
  5. If you are told the drive is "frozen," you will demand to click the Slumber button and echo this procedure until you can proceed further. If your drive indicates a password requirement, exit the countersign every bit "NULL."
  6. Confirm that y'all have read and understood the risks, so hit Yes to erase your drive.

Secure Erase Your SSD Using PSID Revert

At that place is a third method to erase your SSD securely. The Physical Security ID (PSID) revert effectively cryptographically erases the content of your SSD, then resets it to the erase state. Notwithstanding, this method only works if you cannot securely erase the drive due to full disk encryption.

ssd with psid

A PSID Revert wipes the entire drive. This process also works if the drive is hardware encrypted but not encrypted using third-party software. Find out if your drive supports PSID Revert past completing an internet search for "[your drive name] PSID Revert."

Deeply Erasing an SSD for Mac Users

Attempting to kick Parted Magic on a Mac can cause some bug. The issues chronicle to the method you employ to create the Parted Magic bootable USB drive. Some burning programs work fine, while other options never seem to work.

A forum postal service on the Apple Stack Exchange provides details on how to kick Parted Magic on a Mac, with some handy pictures, too. Yous should besides cheque out our guide on how to create a bootable USB for a Mac—but remember, your mileage may vary!

Other forum posts advise that if you experience problems with your Mac SSD and information technology is still nether warranty, you should allow Apple take a look.

You Can Wipe Your SSD Clean

Wiping an SSD make clean requires different tools to a regular difficult drive. At present you lot know the options, yous tin securely erase your SSD before selling or altruistic it. Manufacturer secure erase options are handy, but the Parted Magic secure erase choice is best.

Remember, if y'all're non selling or altruistic the bulldoze and just want to destroy the information, you lot can ever smash it up with a behemothic hammer. Of course, this will obliterate your data, too as the bulldoze itself. But you volition securely erase your data in the procedure.

5 Alarm Signs Your SSD Is About to Suspension Down and Fail

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About The Author

Gavin Phillips (1036 Articles Published)

Gavin is the Inferior Editor for Technology Explained, a regular contributor to the Really Useful Podcast, and a frequent production reviewer. He has a degree in Contemporary Writing pillaged from the hills of Devon, and more than a decade of professional writing experience. He enjoys copious amounts of tea, board games, and football game.

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