Preparing 970 Evo Plus to sell

BS Dave · 7 Dec 2025 at 15:02

I've got a 970 Evo Plus 1TB I want to sell on, but i'm not sure about a couple of things.

1 - What should i use to get a good reading of the health of the drive for potential buyers?
2 - How far do i need to go erasing it? Just a fast/slow format or full on secure erase via samsung magician/bootable USB?

Thanks

D

BS Dave · 7 Dec 2025 at 15:30

So I'm trying to get Extended Smart Self Test to work in Magician, but it says i need the Samsung 3.3 NVME driver, which I've downloaded but I don't seem to be able to install it even as administator? Anyone got an tips? Thanks

Snapshot · 7 Dec 2025 at 15:57

A screenshot from CrystalDiskInfo is usually accepted by buyers.

How you erase depends on what's on the disk and your level of paranoia. I find Diskpart's Clean command adequate - just a standard clean for stuff I don't care about or a full for sensitive data.

Tetras · 7 Dec 2025 at 17:41

BS Dave said:
2 - How far do i need to go erasing it? Just a fast/slow format or full on secure erase via samsung magician/bootable USB?

I'd recommend more than a format, especially a quick format. I doubt the average buyer is going to go looking for stuff with recovery software, but you never know.

BS Dave · 16 Dec 2025 at 14:51

Samsung Magician was useless, but luckily my MSI mobo has a secure erase function in the bios so i used that

coupe69 · 19 Dec 2025 at 10:59

Never had an issue with Samsung Magician’s Secure Erase. It works by issuing a hardware‑level ATA Secure Erase/Sanitize command to the SSD controller, which resets all NAND cells to a factory‑fresh state and destroys the internal encryption key, making previous data unrecoverable. This is far more secure than formatting or overwriting and is the method Samsung themselves recommend.