Secure Erase SSD in Lion

[axu539]

So we now know that Lion has TRIM support. Can anyone with access check if Lion can now do a secure erase of SSDs through disk utility? This would be very welcome for people who ever want to sell their machines.

 

[neal.young]

As of now, all the erase options in Disk Utility for my MacBook Air's SSD are greyed out. Hopefully this means that Apple is working on a secure erase feature for SSDs.

 

[axu539]

As of now, all the erase options in Disk Utility for my MacBook Air's SSD are greyed out. Hopefully this means that Apple is working on a secure erase feature for SSDs.

Sounds promising!

 

[MyRumors]

hmm i did a secure erase on my new Air before i turned it in to Apple for trobleshooting. The options where there under SL and seemed to work fine.

 

[unethical]

There is no option under Lion (via command+R rescue) to do a secure erase. I am assuming it's just best to load a 10.6 DVD and try it from there.

10.6 DVD crashes during boot, so that option is gone.

Just stuck here on how to secure format the latest macbook air 256GB flash.

So I booted with a USB drive that I had Lion on it from another Mac.

If you go to format type for the SSD, and choose MacOS with the Encrypted setting, it lets you choose a password for the partition, then once you create that partition, it allowed you to erase with security options.

Hope it helps.

 

[flatfoot]

Resurrecting a sort of old thread here, but FYI, booting off a Lion install thumb drive made from the AppleStore download (10.7.4), I'm zeroing out the internal 64GB SSD of my 2010 MBA right now using the "diskutil" command in terminal.

Instructions:

• After booting off the thumb drive choose "Terminal" from the "Utilities" menu.
• Type "diskutil info" to get a list of your devices and write down the identifier of the SSD you want to erase ("diskX" with X being a number). It was "disk0" for me.
• Type "diskutil zeroDisk <diskX>" with diskX being the indentifier of your SSD.

This will start the zeroing process. I've heard somewhere that this whole process doesn't make sense due to the way data is dealt with when written to an SSD (wear leveling), but I just feel safer this way if I want to sell my MBA or the SSD.

 

[dpo]

Resurrecting a sort of old thread here, but FYI, booting off a Lion install thumb drive made from the AppleStore download (10.7.4), I'm zeroing out the internal 64GB SSD of my 2010 MBA right now using the "diskutil" command in terminal.

Instructions:

• After booting off the thumb drive choose "Terminal" from the "Utilities" menu.
• Type "diskutil info" to get a list of your devices and write down the identifier of the SSD you want to erase ("diskX" with X being a number). It was "disk0" for me.
• Type "diskutil zeroDisk <diskX>" with diskX being the indentifier of your SSD.

This will start the zeroing process. I've heard somewhere that this whole process doesn't make sense due to the way data is dealt with when written to an SSD (wear leveling), but I just feel safer this way if I want to sell my MBA or the SSD.

This is a waste of time.

The thing to do, if it's a fresh SSD, is turn on Filevault 2 right off the bat and encrypt the whole disk. That way, when you come to sell your MBA, you'll do a fresh install and even if your information theoretically still exists and is accessible to someone truly dedicated, it will be encrypted.