Secure empty trash and erase free space?

[DoodlyDoo]

Does secure empty trash and erase free space make it so you can't recover files from backups using Time Machine?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

No, it overwrites the data on the HDD you deleted the data from, thus it is unrecoverable from the HDD you deleted it from. If you have a backup via TM from that data, the backup will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself.
Using Secure Empty Trash
Erasing free disk space
both links found via "mac erase free space" & "mac secure empty trash"

 

[gr8tfly]

No.

But if you want to also remove the files from your Time Machine backup, you can remove them from all backups through the Time Machine interface.

 

[iMackPro]

sidenote

so by erasing free space that means that instead of just rewriting over the data thats on the disk you completely empty it as if it were space that hasn't been used yet? what exactly is the difference? does it help the HD find the disk faster? and what if i have an apple SSD what would it do for me then? i have trim enabled so isn that like the same thing!?


Man thats a lot of questions, im just kinda confused on the whole thing

 

[simsaladimbamba]

so by erasing free space that means that instead of just rewriting over the data thats on the disk you completely empty it as if it were space that hasn't been used yet? what exactly is the difference? does it help the HD find the disk faster? and what if i have an apple SSD what would it do for me then? i have trim enabled so isn that like the same thing!?


Man thats a lot of questions, im just kinda confused on the whole thing

Does this take away some of the confusion?

Erasing free disk space

When you delete files by emptying the Trash, Mac OS X deletes the information used to access the files but doesn't actually delete the files. Although the disk space used by deleted files is marked as free space, deleted files remain intact until new date is written over them. Because of this, deleted files can be recovered.

does it help the HD find the disk faster?

HDD is short for "Hard Disk Drive" and is often abbreviated as "HD". The HDD is a platter based, mechanical storage device, currently the most common one in computers. What do you mean with "disk"?

 

[iMackPro]

Does this take away some of the confusion?



HDD is short for "Hard Disk Drive" and is often abbreviated as "HD". The HDD is a platter based, mechanical storage device, currently the most common one in computers. What do you mean with "disk"?

yeah that was a poorly typed question, what i ment was, does it help the HDD find the file you are looking for fater, if you perform a empty free space, because its blank instead of data written over data. does that make sense?


also, so since i have a TRIM enabled SSD, do i need to do this? see i have a 128 apple SSD, so i fill it up close to the max and then delete movies all of the time, so should i be doing this after i delete everything and then do that every time i clear out my SSD? or should i not have to worry because thats what TRIM does?!

 

[DoodlyDoo]

How might one even recover files on the hard drive after deleting them?

 

[Dhelsdon]

Your best bet is to get some undelete software, unless you have erased free space you will be able to recover deleted files.

When you erase free space, you are writing 1's and 0's over the "free space" so deleted files cannot be recovered.