Secure Erasing my SSD in my Mac..

[comda]

Greetings Fellow Members,

Ive been reading a lot of controversy about SSD's in Macs being secure erased between OS installs. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro 15" fitted with a Samsung SSD, and lately its been beach balling a LOT and even taking a screen shot takes about a minute to populate it on my desktop. So I decided to do a format/reload. However I was wondering whats the best way or if I even should bother doing so. Im reading it could help with the SSD's performance.. Thoughts? Or do you just select erase and reinstall the OS?

http://osxdaily.com/2013/04/22/secure-erase-mac-ssd-drive-recovery-mode/

 

[prisstratton]

The SSD would not necessarily be the first thing I would point my finger at. The 2012 model MBP's are well known for having SATA cable failures. The fix is quite easy to do yourself, check out the guides on iFixit. They sell the part for $35, but I would guess that you can find cheaper if you shop around.

 

[treekram]

If you read the comments to the article you linked, it suggests that if you have TRIM enabled, erase the disk and let it sit for awhile and you'll accomplish the same thing as a secure erase with less wear on the SSD. Erase/write cycles are the enemy of SSD longevity so you should avoid doing that unnecessarily. That the article suggests doing a 35-pass erase on a SSD is pretty ridiculous.

Before doing this, you should make sure to have sufficient free space on the disk. Also, check your memory usage using the Activity Monitor app.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201464

There could also be something going on with High Sierra on your MBP.

 

[rpmurray]

If the SSD is an older Samsung 840 EVO that hasn't had the firmware updated you may want to try updating the firmware.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/9196/samsung-releases-second-840-evo-fix

 

[SkyLinx]

From what I understand the ATA secure erase can cause more damage than good depending on the SSD and it's controller etc. As treekram says a full TRIM would do.