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    Preparing Laptop for Sale with SSD

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    ssd dban
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    • ?
      A Former User
      last edited by

      Are there any special considerations when wiping an SSD to sale? Should you just use Dban DoD short as normal?

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      • J
        JaredBusch
        last edited by

        DBAN is useless on an SSD.

        Why would you even think to run it?

        SSD write all new writes to locations based on wear leveling and the OS has no idea what location is being wrote to.

        Also, tools like DBAN will significantly shorten the life of the drive as it performs so many write actions.

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        • J
          JaredBusch
          last edited by

          Google ATA Secure Erase or the syntax for the Linux command hdparam to initialize a secure erase.

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          • D
            Deleted74295 Banned
            last edited by

            I think that after much debate, the only truly safe conclusion for an SSD was total destruction.

            ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • C
              Carnival Boy
              last edited by

              I don't know how DBAN or SSDs work. But if I have 100GB drive and I use a utility to write 100GB of data to it, by definition, all the previous data will have been destroyed won't it? It also won't significantly short the life of the drive, since SSDs are designed to be written to many more times than once.

              What am I missing here?

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              • H
                hobbit666
                last edited by

                Have you looked at the manufactures tools? Sure i've seen erase options for SSD?

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                • ?
                  A Former User @hobbit666
                  last edited by

                  @hobbit666 said:

                  Have you looked at the manufactures tools? Sure i've seen erase options for SSD?

                  It has a secure erase option in the BIOS. It took all of 30 seconds to do that.

                  J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • J
                    JaredBusch
                    last edited by

                    @Carnival-Boy said:

                    I don't know how DBAN or SSDs work. But if I have 100GB drive and I use a utility to write 100GB of data to it, by definition, all the previous data will have been destroyed won't it? It also won't significantly short the life of the drive, since SSDs are designed to be written to many more times than once.

                    What am I missing here?

                    When the OS write to sector 102, that is based on the spinning rust type of addressing drive space. The SSD internally maps sector 102 to address space 234 for this write.
                    But now the OS says write this other thing to sector 102. The SSD internally maps it to address space 456 because the built in wear leveling says that space is next to be wrote to.
                    It marks address space 234 available.

                    you have no control over where the writes are really going with an SSD.

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                    • J
                      JaredBusch @A Former User
                      last edited by

                      @thecreativeone91 said:

                      @hobbit666 said:

                      Have you looked at the manufactures tools? Sure i've seen erase options for SSD?

                      It has a secure erase option in the BIOS. It took all of 30 seconds to do that.

                      If that was designed for SSD, then what it likely does is the same as the hdparam command that sets voltage on all the address spaces to reset them.

                      ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        A Former User @JaredBusch
                        last edited by

                        @JaredBusch said:

                        @thecreativeone91 said:

                        @hobbit666 said:

                        Have you looked at the manufactures tools? Sure i've seen erase options for SSD?

                        It has a secure erase option in the BIOS. It took all of 30 seconds to do that.

                        If that was designed for SSD, then what it likely does is the same as the hdparam command that sets voltage on all the address spaces to reset them.

                        It was. It's an M.2 SSD that came in the laptop.

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                        • C
                          Carnival Boy @JaredBusch
                          last edited by

                          @JaredBusch said:

                          you have no control over where the writes are really going with an SSD.

                          Maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. If I ask an SSD to save 100gb of data and it is only a 100gb drive, then it will have to fill the drive and overwrite everything that was previously on the drive. Because it has nowhere else it can store the data.

                          ? J 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • ?
                            A Former User @Carnival Boy
                            last edited by

                            @Carnival-Boy said:

                            @JaredBusch said:

                            you have no control over where the writes are really going with an SSD.

                            Maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. If I ask an SSD to save 100gb of data and it is only a 100gb drive, then it will have to fill the drive and overwrite everything that was previously on the drive. Because it has nowhere else it can store the data.

                            But I don't think you need to do that with SSDs. SSDs aren't physical platters and are more akin to EEPROMs (not the same of course) than HDDs meaning you could just reset them, there's nothing to be left behind as it's a chip not a magnetic device.

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                            • ?
                              A Former User @Deleted74295
                              last edited by

                              @Breffni-Potter said:

                              I think that after much debate, the only truly safe conclusion for an SSD was total destruction.

                              Where did you hear that?

                              D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • J
                                JaredBusch @Carnival Boy
                                last edited by

                                @Carnival-Boy said:

                                @JaredBusch said:

                                you have no control over where the writes are really going with an SSD.

                                Maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. If I ask an SSD to save 100gb of data and it is only a 100gb drive, then it will have to fill the drive and overwrite everything that was previously on the drive. Because it has nowhere else it can store the data.

                                Actualy, it DOES have space to write to that you have no access to. All SSD do.

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                                • D
                                  Deleted74295 Banned @A Former User
                                  last edited by

                                  @thecreativeone91 said:

                                  @Breffni-Potter said:

                                  I think that after much debate, the only truly safe conclusion for an SSD was total destruction.

                                  Where did you hear that?

                                  Spent ages trawling through different forums, articles, a lot of them boiled down to
                                  "We don't know if the data is truly gone, so just take a hammer and nail through the storage chips to be safe"

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                                  • J
                                    JaredBusch
                                    last edited by

                                    This is one article I read on the subject in the past.

                                    https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/SSD_Secure_Erase

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                                    • J
                                      JaredBusch
                                      last edited by

                                      The basic summary is that if the manufacturer gives you sufficient details to know how the secure erase is performed on their hardware then you can know if it is effective. If they do not, destroying the device is the only way to be certain.

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                                      • DashrenderD
                                        Dashrender
                                        last edited by

                                        Actually, there is another way.

                                        If you use full disk encryption from day one, once you delete the encryption key you don't have to worry about it.

                                        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                        • J
                                          JaredBusch @Dashrender
                                          last edited by

                                          @Dashrender said:

                                          Actually, there is another way.

                                          If you use full disk encryption from day one, once you delete the encryption key you don't have to worry about it.

                                          Any encryption can be broken. That is why the article I linked talks about getting verified information from the vendor.

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