How to Secure Erase SSD or Wipe SSD – MiniTool Guide 2021 [Partition Manager]

By Rodin | Follow | Last Updated January 05, 2021

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Reddit

Summary :

While most users are seeking a way to keep privacy from leakage, hard drive eraser can satisfy user’s needs. Read this post and you will have a general understanding of secure erase as well as the way to secure erase SSD Windows 10.

Quick Navigation :

What Is Secure Erase

Secure erase is most commonly mentioned when you are using PATA and SATA based hard drives. Different from deletion and high-level formatting which only moves data to a location that’s easy to recover, secure erase permanently rewrites the hard drive by filling the whole drive with a binary zero, one or random data, making it difficult for someone to discover what has been saved on the disk.

That is to say, once a hard drive is securely erased, no data recovery software or partition recovery tool is helpful in lost data recovery.

And during the rewrite process, no verification is needed because the writing occurs from within the drive, making it very fast compared to other data sanitization methods.

But note that not all programs you can find on the internet is able to secure erase hard drive. Unless they specifically pointed out that they use a hard drive’s Secure Erase commands, they likely do not perform secure erase but only makes your hard drive safe by preventing data recovery.

Free Hard Drive Eraser Helps Secure Wipe SSD

As we know, erasing an SSD (solid-state drive) not only cleans up the drive, but regains the lost performance on systems with inefficient garbage collection. There are times you may prefer to secure erase an SSD.

For example, you are going to abandon an SSD because it is about to reach its lifespan, or you are going to sell/donate your laptop in which the SSD contains numerous of personal files, or the SSD seems to run abnormal.

How do you wipe a computer clean to sell it? This article will show you how to wipe hard drive before selling by using a free drive wiper – MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Then how to completely erase all data on a SATA SSD?

Generally speaking, there are many choices for you like HP Secure Erase to secure erase SSD Windows 10. However, for average users who have multiple brands of hard drives, a universal free SSD erasing tool that works on all SSDs is a better choice.

Writing here, we would like to introduce you a piece of free yet professional hard drive eraser that can help you erase SSD in multiple choices.

MiniTool Partition Wizard is an expert in hard disk drive management. This rich-featured software is most commonly used to extend C drive, migrate OS to SSD, convert MBR to GPT, convert FAT to NTFS, check and fix file system, etc. (Click here to view full features.)

When it comes to secure erase SSD, MiniTool Partition Wizard offers Wipe Disk feature which is able to wipe SSD with 5 different ways. (Not secure erase but totally keeps data from leakage.)

• Fill sector with Zero — QUICK
• Fill sector with One — QUICK
• Fill sector with Zero & One — SLOW
• DoD 5220.22-M (3 passes) — VERY SLOW
• DoD 5220.28-STD (7 passes) — VERY SLOW

To be specific, Wipe Disk feature is most commonly used when you want to completely remove all data on the SSD to prevent privacy leakage. And all of the 5 ways listed above can prevent your data from being recovered by most data recovery software in the market.

However, it is worth mentioning that these wiping methods consume different time. Usually, to secure erase SSD, you can choose “Fill sector with Zero” OR “Fill sector with One”. But if you feel unease, choose the last two ways instead and wait longer for Partition Wizard to finish its job.

Click the button below to download this hard drive eraser. Works well on Windows 10/8/7 all editions.

#1. Back up SSD

If there are a few files/folders you want to keep, you can copy and paste these files directly in Windows OS. If your key files are kept in one partition, you can copy partition using MiniTool Partition Wizard. And, if the whole data on SSD is important, perform Disk Copy instead.

Take disk copy for example.

Step 1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to get the main interface. Then select the SSD which contains important data and choose Copy from the context menu.

Step 2. Select the target disk which will be used to save all content of the source SSD. You need to know that the disk selected as target disk will be cleaned. So please make sure that this disk is ready. Then click Next to go on.

Step 3. Select the copy options you prefer and click Next to continue.

Step 4. An information page appears which tells how to boot from the target disk. If the SSD you are copying is a system disk, you should pay attention to this page. Now click Finish to go on.

Step 5. Press the Apply button when you are back to the main interface. If you are copying a system disk, or if there are programs running on the disk, MiniTool Partition needs a restart. Please do as you are prompted and wait patiently.

When the SSD has been backed up, you can continue with SSD erase.

#2. Secure Erase SSD

Step 1. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard to get the main interface. Then select the SSD you want to wipe and choose Wipe Disk from the action panel.

Step 2. In the pop-up new window, 5 wiping methods are presented. Please choose any one according to your preference. Then click OK to go back to the main interface.

Step 3. Hit the Apply button on the toolbar to execute. Please wait patiently for data wiping will take a relatively longer time than other disk partition management operations.

Depending on the hard drive capacity, the wiping time can be short or longer. When MiniTool Partition Wizard finishes its job, you can give up the SSD or donate the whole computer without any worries. Download the free hard drive eraser to have a try!

Verdict

Here comes to the end of SSD secure erase. We hope you can benefit something from this post. And, in daily disk management, you can also choose MiniTool Partition Wizard to help you do a lot of things.

Whatever, if you have any question when using MiniTool software, you can feel free to contact us via [email protected] . For any suggestions on SSD secure erase, welcome to leave us comments below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Position: Columnist

Rodin is an enthusiastic IT writer focusing on Windows trends, disk partition management and data recovery. She loves to write and share her idea about the useful tips and tricks on personal computers’ maintenance.

If you are looking for methods to improve your computer performance, manage hard drives and recover data from different devices, Rodin can provide reliable solutions for data management.

How to Securely Erase SSD Drive in Windows 7?

Before selling your SSD, you need to erase SSD drive securely to wipe data in Windows 10/8/7 so that your data on it won’t be retrieved with despiteful purpose.

By Teresa / Last Updated May 19, 2020

Secure Erase SSD on Windows

Secure Erase is a feature of the firmware which enables you to delete the whole cells on an SSD and restores it to factory default value and performance. Secure Erase SSD will help you reset the whole regions of the NADA contained the ones are invisible to other software tools.

Secure Erase SSD is useful for you when you have to remove data permanently or want to return a drive to its new performance state when it has had lots of incompressible writes and poor TRIM. When secure erase SSD, TRIM (enable SSD TRIM manually) and garbage collection can help you automatically.

How Does SSD Record Data?

Typically SSDs use NADA flash memory to store data and a flash controller to connect the memory with the host computer. For SSDs, data is stored in blocks. Each block consists of more than one file.

We compare a block as a notebook and a file as one page of the notebook. For SSDs the data on notebook can be wiped when it is necessary. However, if you delete data on a page it isn’t really deleted, it is marked for deletion. This is because data can be only deleted on blocks. To sum up, you need to tear up the “page” of “notebook” if you want to remove data permanently.

SSD Secure Erase vs Format

There are many differences between secure erase and disk format, but one of the biggest differences lies in if the format data could be retrieved or not. Secure erase marks everything as garbage and working with TRIM command and garbage collection. However, a Quick Format would not. The data deleted by Quick Format could be easily recovered by professional data recovery tools.

How to Erase SSD Securely?

SSD is regarded as the best upgrade to your computers, so most of the users try to use it. However SSD has limited writing times, which leads to some problems especially how to erase SSD securely. Although the erasing of SSD is different from HDD, don’t worry, there are ways for you to erase SSD safely.

Erase SSD with Manufacture Software

Except for secure erase SSD command line: ATA Secure Erase, there are other SSD erase tools. A lot of manufacturers offer users with software for their SSD which is used to upgrade firmware and apply tasks like secure erase, such as Samsung Magician, Intel SSD Toolbox, and SanDisk SSD Toolkit. So you need to find the brand of your SSD and find out the software.

Nevertheless, these SSD erase utilities can erase SSD to factory only in their certain brand. For instance, you cannot erase Kingston SSD or Crucial SSD with Samsung Magician. In that case, you’ll need a professional erase tool to wipe SSD before selling to others or for other purposes.

SSD Secure Erase Free Software: AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is free partition software, which devotes to partition management. With this software, you can erase all the data on your SSD to avoid others using your data by recovery. This software provides two features to wipe data on disk, Wipe Hard Drive and SSD Secure Erase Wizard.

Note: you can free backup SSD with AOMEI Backupper Standard in advance if you want to keep files on SSD intact or just backup important files to cloud or external hard drive.

Wipe SSD with Multiple Times

This “Wipe Hard Drive” feature allows you to wipe all data on the disk up to 100 times. It is suitable for both HDD and SSD.

Step1: Download, install and launch it. Right-click the SSD you want to erase and then choose Wipe Hard Drive.

Step2: Set the number of times you want to wipe the hard drive. You can specify the number from 1-100.

Step3: If you want to perform the operation then click Apply.

Tips: You can specify the number of times to wipe from 1 to 100 by using “Wipe Hard Drive”. The larger the number, the longer the operating time is. In most instances, one time will be sufficient. You may need to partition your SSD after erasing everything.

Securely Erase SSD in Windows 7 with better method

Since SSD writes and reads data in different way from HDD, so AOMEI Partition Assistant develops a new feature in its 6.5 version to erase SSD hard drive securely with no possibility to recover data. Download the latest edition to have a try.

Step 1: connect the SSD to a Windows 7 computer via SATA port. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Click on “SSD Secure Erase Wizard” in the left pane.

Step 2: select the SSD you want to erase from given list. You can double click the selected SSD to see if it is the right one because all data on SSD will be irretrievable after erasing.

Step 3: you’ll find the SSD is under a frozen state according to the prompts. The frozen state is set to ensure nobody can modify your drive settings. Now, you need to do a hot swap.

Tips: To perform a Hot Swap:

First, open computer case, rear cover or drive shell and find out the SSD you’ll erase.

Second, unplug the power cable and then disconnect the SATA data cable from SSD.

Finally, after a few seconds, reconnect the SATA cable to the SATA port and then plug the power cable back to complete the hot-swap.

Step 4: click Next to start the SSD secure erase process. The process will be done in very short time.

Note:

To secure erase SSD on laptop or SSD that with Windows operating system installed, you need to uninstall the SSD and connect it to a computer runs Windows 7 to do SSD secure erase.

Once the wipe operation is carried out by AOMEI Partition Assistant, the data will not be recovered by any data recovery software, so use with caution.

More differences between SSD and HDD are introduced in SSD vs HDD.

AOMEI Partition Assistant is not file-level wipe software but a sector-level one. So, you can only use AOMEI Partition Assistant to wipe partition or disk. After a partition/disk has been wiped, all the files on it will be erased simultaneously. If you do need to wipe a specific file, then you have to download file-level wipe software.

Conclusion

You probably have answer for how to erase SSD securely on Windows. Give AOMEI Partition Assistant a shot and it will surprise you. This software has many other helpful features that will assist you maintain your computer hard drive in good state and conditions.