Bought a used M1 Air. Difference between clean install and erase all content and settings?

[gdourado]

Hello,
Today I pulled the trigger and got a used M1 Air.
Now I want to do a clean install of the OS and start fresh on the machine.

There is now an option on the system menu that is erase all content and settings.
This seems to be similar to how a factory reset works on iPhones and iPads.

But on a computer is this different than doing a clean install of the os from a USB stick?

What is the better option? Erase?
Or boot from usb, erase the hard drive in disk utility and then install the OS?

Thanks.
Regards.

 

[KaliYoni]

What is the better option?

If I had a similar choice to make for a machine I bought used, I would encrypt and erase the SSD and then do a clean OS install.

Why? Because I would want all traces of the previous owner(s) removed as completely as possible.

If you're interested, this is a good overview of erasing Mac drives:

How to Securely Erase a Mac’s SSD or Hard Drive - TidBITS

If you need to get rid of a Mac or external drive, how do you ensure that no one can access the data on it? Adam Engst runs through the various methods you can employ, one or more of which should address your situation.

tidbits.com

 

[Ray2]

Erase all content and settings is essentially a clean install. Beginning with Monterey on T2 and Apple silicon Macs, it replaces erasing the disk. All internals are automatically encrypted. If you understand the above linked article, you understand why you don’t need to erase the disk.