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How to securely wipe SSD before selling?

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kat.hayes

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
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Going to sell and upgrade my iMac. With hard drives I would securely wipe the drives, though I know you are not supposed to do that with the SSD. What is the best way to ensure the data is not realistically recoverable by anyone outside some security company/agency? Does turning on FileVault before formatting it help, I thought I read something about that somewhere.

Thanks.
 
Luba said:
Simply having TRIM securely erases a SSD when you run "delete"?
Click to expand...
You'd need a forensic data recovery specialist to retrieve the data. It's much more difficult to retrieve data from an SSD than magnetic hard drives. There are tools available that will completely factory reset and wipe an entire SSD, but they usually only work in Windows.
 
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UL2RA said:
You'd need a forensic data recovery specialist to retrieve the data. It's much more difficult to retrieve data from an SSD than magnetic hard drives. There are tools available that will completely factory reset and wipe an entire SSD, but they usually only work in Windows.
Click to expand...
If you use FileVault and TRIM, then "delete" when time to sell, we should be okay? A forsenic data recovery specialist couldn't get at data encrypted with FileVault?
 
If you're concerned about government forensics, forget it. If the fed wants your info that much they'll just pick you up in person.

If you're concerned about casual users and even most hardcore geeks, use the secure erase and overwrite it 7 times.
 
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Melrose said:
If you're concerned about government forensics, forget it. If the fed wants your info that much they'll just pick you up in person.

If you're concerned about casual users and even most hardcore geeks, use the secure erase and overwrite it 7 times.
Click to expand...
Secure erase and overwrite 7 times doesn't work with SSDs. Disk Utility won't even let you invoke the command.

I'm thinking they're are people who buy used computers with SSDs and HDDs and try to get passwords etc. off them. One of the IT guys where I used to work bought some software to help out another co-worker because she "lost" all her photos since she didn't back up. The IT guy said it was easy for him to recover everything. That's why I asked if you use FileVault and TRIM, then use "delete" when time to sell computer with SSD, we should be okay? Forsenic data recovery software couldn't get at data encrypted with FileVault, correct?

The safe thing to do would be sell just the computer and take out the SSD and put a hammer or blowtorch, but difficult to take out the SSD in an iMac.
 
Apologies for jumping in here, but in the same boat.

I get that if someone really wants to, they can probably get to my information. But at least I'd like to pop up a few hurdles...

Hi-tech recovery efforts aside, would it make at least some sense for me to switch on Filevault for the first time, and then do the wipe/erase?

Remember reading somewhere that this removes the "key', so to speak, adding at least an additional layer of protection to the SSD?

Or will TRIM and delete be more than enough?
 
Melrose said:
If you're concerned about government forensics, forget it. If the fed wants your info that much they'll just pick you up in person.

If you're concerned about casual users and even most hardcore geeks, use the secure erase and overwrite it 7 times.
Click to expand...

Deleted. Someone had already mentioned what I said.
 
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