which is more secure erasing or encrypting ?

which is more secure encryption or erasing, there has been lots of discussion on whether erasing is actually recoverable and at which point does it become overkill and a waste of time and resources ? by erasing i mean free space or file erasing or maybe a combination of both.

or should i encrypt and erase after for added security or is this just unneeded. both of the methods of erasing and encrypting assume that both are done properly as recommended and for encryption the algo is tried and tested to be secure.

 

If I had some really sensitive data then I would first encrypt data (with key as long as possible) and then erase (overwrite) the data. Even if somebody manages to recover deleted data, they would still need to decrypt it.

 

See this similar recent thread: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=355192

 

I would say secure deletion would be preferred, in your case. Like one other poster said, not there is better than there. If the whole computer is FDE, there is less of a worry in a powered off state, but you never know *when* someone will get your box, so secure deletion is an added layer. It would seem a waste of resources to encrypt a file you no longer want, instead of just securely deleting it.

The context that mentioned encrypting .vs wiping, was one of trying to explain the second partition in a very specific use case of TC booting off of external device. It's very complicated, dealing with partition tables and disk sector bytes, etc...

PD