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Question What program are you using to securely erase both Flash and Internal Drives?

bob4432

bob4432

Lifer
I have been cleaning out my desk and have found quite a few flash drives, 2.5" & 3.5" spinners in USB3 enclosures along with a couple SSDs in USB3 enclosures. They vary in size from 8GB upto multi TB ins size. What has been your program of choice to securely (as if you are going to sell in the FS/FT section) wipe the drives? Speed is important, but securely wiping the drive is #1 in importance.

Also, since I have a decent amount (looking at about 15 drives of different types and I have just started cleaning out the drawers and finding mostly flash, especially those little SDXC cards because they are smaller than a postage stamp), is there any problem hooking them up to a USB3 hub so I can possibly do multiple drives at once. My laptop has 3 USB3 ports in it, so if I could get a hub that did strictly flash drives connected using the normal USB A connection to 1 of the laptop's USB3 ports (USB A connection), then a more generic USB3 card reader for the different size SD cards would be excellent, if possible, again USB A connection into laptop then various sized adapters on the hub.

Is there a way to wipe the drive w/out having to write random data to them?

Also, what is a good program to see if I can see any data after I have wiped them? I have used Recuva in the past when I have accidentally deleted a program and it worked well, but that was just a simple 'oops' delete, not a program designed for data destruction and sanitation.

Thanks in advance,
Bob
 
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bob4432 said:
Is there a way to wipe the drive w/out having to write random data to them?
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Darik's Boot and Nuke - DBAN - Darik's Boot And Nuke

Free Open-Source Data Wiping Software for Personal Use
dban.org dban.org
Free for personal use. Not sure if it works with flash storage but I don't see a reason why it shouldn't.
To be more secure though, it's still better to fill the drive with random large files (movies, games), three times over.

As far as recovering programs, the good ones are not free as they are considered professional.
 
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For SSDs, most of them will support the secure erase feature, though they may need a direct SATA connection to work with, not sure if USB 3 would work. I would use this, as it is fast, secure, AND will help restore the health of the SSD.

For wiping drives in general, as well as other diagnostics and data transfer, I like to use parted magic from a bootable flashdrive. It is basically a utility Linux, though it costs a little bit of money, though not much. It supports DD, shred, DBAN, and NVMe / ATA secure erase for SSDs.
 
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For flash drives, I use VConsole.com 's "USB Flash Drive Tester", and do the "Full Write/Read Test". It wipes every sector, and then gives you a status if there were any bad sectors. It goes kind of slowly though.

Software

Software
www.vconsole.com www.vconsole.com
 
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