Best free software for totally wiping a ssd ?

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Caporegime
Joined
1 Jun 2006
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got a spare ssd want to totally wipe so nothing on.can anyone recommend decent software to achieve this in the easiest way possible ? thanks !
 
Some motherboards are capable of this. My old Asus Max VI is. Might be worth checking if yours can. Failing that I can't recomend a particular app so hopefully someone else can add something.
 
Bitlocker the entire drive then just delete the partition, any information present will be rendered useless.
 
Or just download the manufacturers app and do a secure erase that essentially returns it to factory condition.

No need to write zeros etc as that is just burning through the drives write cycles.
 
Armageus said:
Or just download the manufacturers app and do a secure erase that essentially returns it to factory condition.

No need to write zeros etc as that is just burning through the drives write cycles.
Click to expand...
Surely that does the same thing? If it just drops links to the files and doesnt also overwrite the data then it can be recovered and so isn't secure.
 
Hades said:
Surely that does the same thing? If it just drops links to the files and doesnt also overwrite the data then it can be recovered and so isn't secure.
Click to expand...

Nope it tells the ssds flash controller to erase whole pages which is significantly better for drive health than writing and then potentially rewriting pages as zeros are written.

It has nothing to do with the file system, it is low level functionality built into the flash chips.
 
Armageus said:
Nope it tells the ssds flash controller to erase whole pages which is significantly better for drive health than writing and then potentially rewriting pages as zeros are written.

It has nothing to do with the file system, it is low level functionality built into the flash chips.
Click to expand...
Ah OK. I learned something new today. Thanks :)
 
Some of the manufacturers erase don't work according to some reports, and overwriting doesnt work on ssd. Your are meant to encrypt the ssd before you use it. Some manufacturers erase does work though.
 
OspreyO said:
Your are meant to encrypt the ssd before you use it
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you mean, as opposed to pikes' bitlocker proposal, or, generally, you should encrypt ssd's ?
ssd's don't generally have hardware encryption yet do they ? so encryption is not free.

Tomsk said:
eraser
Works from Windows, so you can keep using your PC while it gets on with it.
Click to expand...
that will just clock up the drive write cycles ?
 
stockhausen said:
Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) -or- KillDisk Freeware
Click to expand...

Nope to both of those:
dban said:
While DBAN is free to use, there’s no guarantee your data is completely sanitized across the entire drive. It cannot detect or erase SSDs and does not provide a certificate of data removal for auditing purposes or regulatory compliance
Click to expand...

Active@Killdisk Freeware also has no specific SSD wiping, and relies on writing data across the drive, which due to wear levelling and possibly write amplification can affect the SSDs life span.


As stated above, using the manufacturer's SSD toolkit, or a third party Secure Erase is the best option, although if there is any doubt and you need 100% reliability, then attempt a recovery with something like the trial of http://www.easeus.com data recovery software

https://www.kingston.com/en/community/articledetail/articleid/29539 - older kingston article ref Secure Erase
 
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