storage backup

How to securely erase an SSD?

We mentioned about 4 erase mode last time in "How to distinguish quick erase vs full erase?" This time, we're gonna talk about the rest of the erase modes especially for SSD - secure erase and enhanced secure erase.


1. Secure erase:
Secure erase is a function designed for SSDs and can completely erase data withing a few seconds. It is compliant with the NIST 800-88 Guidelines for Media Sanitization. It's one of the ATA command sets used to safely erase data on the hard drive by overwriting with '0' - similar to a Full Erase.
Secure erase not only completely resets the data in the hard drive with "0", including all the data areas HPA and DCO, but improves the dropping speed of write/read significantly, and makes the SSD return to initial state.


2. Enhanced secure erase:
Enhanced Secure Erase uses the SSD’s build-in command for erasing data.
According to various hard drive manufacturer’s designs, there will be additional executions. For example, it destroys the encryption key of the SSD to prevent the data from being decoded. This function is often used when the SSD has hidden or encrypted sectors. However, the data encryption may affect to the SSD's efficiency.


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Again, if you don't want to reuse it, you can simply destroy it by physical destruction.