TESTING SSD DRIVES WITH DBAN SERIES

It may also not be possible to verify whether the drive has been wiped. However, if not properly implemented, the data on the drive remains vulnerable. As such, one technique to sanitize the drive is to alter the encryption and decryption key used on the data. Most SSDs encrypt data by default as a security measure. Integrated circuit (IC) chips on SSDs can remain intact after shredding, which means the data they hold can still be recovered. However, for SSDs, a typical hard drive shredder may not be sufficient to totally wipe the data from existence. Shredding is a technique that’s highly relied on for complete hard drive data destruction. That being said, this wiping method gives poor results in SSDs so it should not be solely relied on. Overwrite techniques can also be used to wipe SSDs through the use of IO commands to overwrite every individual block on the drive.

TESTING SSD DRIVES WITH DBAN SERIES

In this technique, a special program is used to overwrite parts of the drive (or the entire drive) with a series of patterns repeatedly. In classic hard drive disposition, one of the most commonly used wiping techniques is repeated overwrite. Otherwise – when wondering how do you wipe an SSD drive – you might want to try another foolproof method. If your solid-state drives hold non-sensitive data, the built-in purge functionality is a sufficient method of wiping the drive. Basically, the purge feature restores the drive’s original state as at the time of manufacture, essentially wiping all the data. Secure Methods For Wiping SSDs Built-in Purge FunctionalityĪ number of SSDs now come with built-in purge functionality. Employing hard drive wiping techniques on SSDs may, in fact, harm them. The SSD continually moves data across the drive to ensure that the different areas of the flash chip wear out uniformly.Īs such, using traditional wiping techniques to overwrite a specific block over countless times doesn’t necessarily work here because the SSD writes all fresh incoming data to different blocks spread across the drive. To circumvent this problem, SSDs employ wear-leveling algorithms to try to prolong their lifespan. What’s more, the flash wears out unevenly, causing some parts to wear out faster than others. In other words, NAND flash memory can be written to only a finite number of times because it wears out over time. However, this benefit comes at the cost of a limited lifetime. One of the biggest advantages of NAND flash storage is the ability to retain data without being powered up (hence the reference non-volatile memory). This makes the process of securely wiping an SSD is a whole new ball game.īefore we highlight a couple of trusted and secure techniques for wiping SSDs, it’s important to understand a few unique characteristics of SSD data storage and why they present sanitization issues. To begin with, none of the proven and widely used hard drive data wiping techniques are effective on SDDs.

NAND-based flash storage is increasingly becoming popular due to the superior benefits it offers over magnetic discs, but how do you wipe an SSD drive at the end of its life cycle?įor all their benefits, SSDs can present some unusual problems when it comes to securely sanitize them at the time of decommissioning. “How do you wipe an SSD drive” is a common internet search these days, ranking alongside queries such as “How do you erase a hard drive?”, “How do I wipe my hard drive clean without a disk?”, and “How do you scan your hard drive for viruses?”

Testing ssd drives with dban