NVMe, ATA, and SCSI sanitize commands were designed to erase SSD storage that’s accessible via both the host interface and the internal firmware of the drive. If you have an NVMe SSD, the NVMe specification supports a sanitize command. Sanitization not only removes the map but also erases all blocks that have been written on. Secure erase will delete the mapping table for the drive but will not wipe all of the blocks that have been written on. (Note: shredding the silicon might damage your shredder machine.) The latter method is final, however, in that the drive is permanently destroyed and cannot be re-used as if fresh out of the box as can be done with other methods. Another method to sanitize a drive is to physically destroy the hard drive platter with a hammer or destroy the silicon chip of the SSD by shredding it or otherwise physically destroying it. Block Erase sets the voltage level on each storage element to a significantly higher level than the standard operating voltage and then drops it to ground. One of the reasons it’s a problem to overwrite NAND flash SSDs is that the system has to issue an ERASE command first before it can perform a WRITE command to the same physical location.Īnother way to sanitize NAND flash-based SSD is by using Block Erase on every element in the flash array. Overwriting data doesn’t work well with SSDs because SSDs don’t work like traditional HDDs.
Another well-known sanitization operation is to overwrite the existing data with something else. Once the encryption key is changed, the data becomes inaccessible or no longer understandable. There are a few methods for permanently destroying data on a drive: A Crypto Erase applies to self-encrypting drives that allow you to change the media encryption key. Figure 1: Erasing or sanitizing an SSD should only take a minute or less. The term “sanitize” describes a process where data is irretrievably removed from a storage device such that it is not possible to forensically (or otherwise) reconstruct it. Erasure methods are very different between the two storage technologies. Methods to sanitize HDDs often do not work on SSDs. However, for most SSDs no overwrite command is available for sanitizing the drive. HDDs can be overwritten multiple times, which takes some time to do. However, permanently erasing SSDs is not the same as for HDDs. (Addressing can get cumbersome and start to get slow if you start to have addresses greater than 32-bits long). SSDs are generally faster to access if they are not too large. New personal computers are migrating from standard Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) to Solid State Drives (SSDs). Discarded drives have been found with everything from financial and medical data, email, and even pornography on them. A drive that’s returned, repurposed, or discarded can have personal or confidential data on it. Here's the rub this method presents HUGE unforeseen consequences (we're talking fatal damage to media) resulting from instances like power interruption, unauthorized SSD extraction, cat gnawing through cable, etc.When you’re done with a data storage drive, it’s nice to make sure that all of the data is scrubbed from it.
Sandisk secure erase vs sanitize software#
Software KillDisk comes to mind) that support SATA Secure Erase will completely destroy all data without degrading the SSD's performance, restoring the SSD to its original out-of-box state. Before long, all the blocks will have seen multiple write and erase sequences, garbage collection and TRIM commands that conventional means of data recovery will be rendered useless. Be sure only to pass it forward to someone you trust and has no interest in harvesting your old data.
Of course, all the shortcomings remain with regard to over-provisioning, wear-leveling, etc., but this should be of little concern for the tyro. Sure, this will shorten the life of a SSD, but not by much unless you make it a habitual practice.
My decision was to perform a simple low-level format on the SSD (a few times, perhaps) and proceed. I was in a similar predicament as OP, except for the hardware manufacturer.