Zeroing free space on hard drive

Cromulent · 24 Jan 2014 at 07:00

I need to zero out the free space on my hard drive (Samsung 840 Pro SSD if it matters). Does anyone know of a decent utility to do this that works with Windows 8.1 Pro?

I'm not looking to completely format my drive I just need to clean the free space.

KIA · 24 Jan 2014 at 12:13

1) Image the drive using Macrium Reflect. It doesn't include the free space by default
2) Use Parted Magic to secure erase the SSD (http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/parted_magic.html)
3) Restore Macrium Reflect image

marc2003 · 24 Jan 2014 at 14:39

~~i've not used it myself but ccleaner appears to have a tool that can do this.~~

edit: on second thoughts, a secure erase as suggested above would be better for a SSD.

tribz · 24 Jan 2014 at 17:44

ccleaner has an option to just secure wipe the free space

KIA · 24 Jan 2014 at 18:43

tribz said:
ccleaner has an option to just secure wipe the free space

This is a feature designed for HDDs only.

tribz · 24 Jan 2014 at 21:16

KIA said:
This is a feature designed for HDDs only.

Just curious what the actual difference is?

KIA · 25 Jan 2014 at 11:30

tribz said:
Just curious what the actual difference is?

SSD wear levelling. Attempting to zero the free space won't guarantee that all data is erased.

tribz · 25 Jan 2014 at 14:41

What does parted magic do that's different?

KIA · 25 Jan 2014 at 16:45

When a Secure Erase is issued against a SSD drive all its cells will be marked as empty, restoring it to factory default write performance

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase
http://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/SSD_Secure_Erase