This was suitable for a long time and is still okay for certain types of files, but now, we have flash-storage based hard drives: Solid State Drives (SSD). The actuator arms have to manually move across the platters to access the storage causing a small delay when retrieving data. Since they’re mechanical, this is a slow process. They have magnetic discs called platters, and actuator arms that move across the platters to access the information written to them.
Traditionally, storage drives were mechanical spinner drives (HDDs).
If you already know about SSDs and just want to know how to wipe a solid state drive, then skip the next section. In order to securely erase data from an SSD, you’ll need to go through a process called “Secure Erase” using either your BIOS or some form of SSD management software.īut first, in order to explain how this works and how to securely erase your data, we need to understand how an SSD works and how a standard drive format works. So, how do you erase an SSD so that no one else can recover it? And when it comes to formatting an SSD, it can be harmful to do a full format. Similarly, you shouldn’t just quick format your hard drive to get rid of the information, as isn’t actually how you clean an SSD. Whatever your method, the fact is that you want that card to be unrecoverable and gone forever so that your information is kept safe. You probably burn it, cut it, or shred it first. When you throw away your credit card, you don’t usually just want to just toss it in the trash.