This describes the SSD dilemma precisely. Some manufacturers do this, some do that. Finding the tools (if they exist) and properly implementing them also seems to be much more difficult than it 'ought to be.' I think your comment about encrypting the drive before production use is a good one, and probably right on the money. Thank you.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Klaus Hartnegg <[email protected]> wrote: > Am 29.01.2015 um 14:54 schrieb Richard Stovall: > >> Another thread mentioned the difficulty of guaranteeing the secure >> erasure of data from SSDs. >> >> I recently had to return a personal laptop for replacement and could not >> find a method for securely erasing its SSD. Googling around for answers, I >> came upon the idea of encrypting the entire drive as one way of virtually >> guaranteeing that data could not be recovered. That made sense to me, and >> some before and after analysis with Winhex seemed to support it as a viable >> solution for my purposes. >> > > SSDs have a lot of spare sectors, and remap sectors which have been in use > very often. You cannot access those sectors any more through normal > software, and they keep their previous contents. To be on the safe side you > must install encryption software before ever writing any of your data. > > Or check if the manufacturer offers a toolbox software for his SSDs. Some > include a full erase function. Let's hope that this still works when your > device needs repair, and that this function really does what it should. > > > >
