Secure Erase Methods Probably Won’t Work on Your Solid-State Drive

lotuseclat79 · Feb 23, 2011

Secure Erase Methods Probably Won’t Work on Your Solid-State Drive.

We've shown you how to properly erase your physical media before, but a recent study showed that most "secure erase" methods don't actually work very well on solid-state drives (SSDs). Here's what you need to know.
Click to expand...

Download PDF link: Reliably Erasing Data From Flash-Based Solid State Drives (1.9MB).

-- Tom

katio · Feb 23, 2011

Lifehacker:

The bottom line: If you're upgrading your hard drive, you might not want to sell your old SSD on eBay until a more secure SSD erasure method comes out.
Click to expand...

Michael Wei et al:

Drive B’s behavior is the most disturbing: it reported
that sanitization was successful, but all the data remained
intact. In fact, the ﬁlesystem was still mountable. Two
more drives suffered a bug that prevented the ERASE
UNIT command from working unless the drive ﬁrmware
was recently reset, otherwise the command would only
erase the ﬁrst LBA. However, they accurately reported
that the command failed.
The wide variance among the drives leads us to conclude that each implementation of the security commands must be individually tested before it can be trusted
to properly sanitize the drive.
Click to expand...

and the conclusion:

For sanitizing entire disks, built-in sanitize commands are effective when implemented correctly
Click to expand...

There already _is_ a secure erase method. The only problem with it is that some firmwares are buggy.

CloneRanger · Feb 23, 2011

Also see here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=293365

Log in or Sign up

Secure Erase Methods Probably Won’t Work on Your Solid-State Drive

lotuseclat79 Registered Member

katio Guest

CloneRanger Registered Member

Log in or Sign up

Secure Erase Methods Probably Won’t Work on Your Solid-State Drive

lotuseclat79 Registered Member

katio Guest

CloneRanger Registered Member

Useful Searches