How to Secure Erase Intel X25-M SSD ?

[Fur4x]

I have seen on multiple web site, and in Anandtech Intel X25-M SSD review that we can perform a secure erase of the drive to revert it back to factory default (Mark all the blocks as available). How can i perform that secure erase ?

 

[Aberforth]

I have the source code to do this but I can't share it because of copyright issues, but there is an alternative solution to this problem, just encrypt the volume using bitlocker or PGP as it makes data recover very difficult, use SHA 256 or 512 digest with AES 256 cipher, remember to backup your private keys.

 

[Fur4x]

I am not worried by my data security, i am looking for an alternative to a full 0 fill of the drive wich would erase the mbr and everything.

 

[taltamir]

that is not secure erasing. So you phrased your question wrong.
So do you want to set everything to 0? just do a full format (it sets everything to 0)

 

[Fur4x]

there is a tool from intel that does just that, mark all the blocks as available and restore the controller to default task. normal format would hirt the life lenght of my drive

 

[jordanclock]

A format reduces the life of an SSD by a minuscule amount. Compared to the amount of writing that occurs in typical computer usage, you shouldn't worry about a format doing any long-term damage.

 

[coolVariable]

the benefit of doing this is obviously the pre-steadystate performance. (It's faster writing to an empty MLC cell)

But it also degrades the life of the SSD.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Fur4x
there is a tool from intel that does just that, mark all the blocks as available and restore the controller to default task. normal format would hirt the life lenght of my drive

1. the "damage" would be 1/100,000th of your drive life
2. using the intel tool will cause the exact same damage.
3. every single post indicates that you have no idea what you are talking about... so just forget about the whole thing and stop trying to "optimize" your drive... just use it... and if you WANT to do advanced stuff, start reading and learning.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
the benefit of doing this is obviously the pre-steadystate performance. (It's faster writing to an empty MLC cell)

But it also degrades the life of the SSD.

intel and some other SSD companies intentionally fills the drive up once in order to avoid a bunch of RMAs for drives that "worked fine for a couple of weeks and then suddenly became a lot slower"..

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: coolVariable
the benefit of doing this is obviously the pre-steadystate performance. (It's faster writing to an empty MLC cell)

But it also degrades the life of the SSD.

intel and some other SSD companies intentionally fills the drive up once in order to avoid a bunch of RMAs for drives that "worked fine for a couple of weeks and then suddenly became a lot slower"..

Yup.
But if he knew what he was doing ... he could maybe squeeze out another 1% performance gain.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: Fur4x
I have seen on multiple web site, and in Anandtech Intel X25-M SSD review that we can perform a secure erase of the drive to revert it back to factory default (Mark all the blocks as available). How can i perform that secure erase ?

There's no point. Why would you do that?? You'll have to secure erase EVERYTIME full capacity of the drive is written. Steady-state performance is the REAL performance of SSD drives.

 

[iseestars]

Originally posted by: Aberforth
I have the source code to do this but I can't share it because of copyright issues, but there is an alternative solution to this problem, just encrypt the volume using bitlocker or PGP as it makes data recover very difficult, use SHA 256 or 512 digest with AES 256 cipher, remember to backup your private keys.

This is actually something I'm interested in - securing data. I read here:

http://www.macworld.com/articl...8/08/ssd_security.html

that encryption on SSD's is actually easy to crack. I was wondering how you enable hardware-level encryption? Is that one of the windows options or do you need a fancy bios to be able to do it? Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question. I just haven't played around with encryption much.

 

[sxr7171]

Okay, I know I'm bumping an old thread but I need to secure erase my Samsung SLC as it seems to have noticeably dropped in performance. I had all kinds of trouble doing this when I last tried. Does anyone with experience have any thoughts on how to do this?

 

[n7]

Okay, i'm bumping this because i'd really like to do this to mine.

I still have not been able to successfully do this, as all the programs i've seen suggested won't load properly, whether in IDE or AHCI mode.

Is there anything that does the same thing but in Windows?

Anyone who's actually been able to succesfully restore the performance of their drive...would be great to hear how you did so.

 

[n7]

Well i finally got it figured out.

Set up a bootable USB drive w/ HDD Erase 3.3 on it.

On my P55-UD3R board, it would not show the HDDs for erasing regardless of ACHI/IDE, etc.

So i tried with my P5B-D, & it worked after i changed HDD mode to Compatible (Enhanced IDE mode wouldn't work even).

Except it didn't entirely work.
Got the "!! ATA Security Feature Set is prohibited by the system BIOS chip !!" message, so i had leave SSD power unplugged until DOS loaded, & then plugged in power (bypasses BIOS security that way).

So much hassle, but performance is close to normal again, as it had slowly gotten lesser after the firmware update i did earlier this summer.