How you secure format non encrypted SSDs before selling?

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shailesh85

Beginner
I understand formatting and then filling it, with encryption on, would be safe enough. I am curious though what other members here do before selling it.
 
When something written in a drive deleted, it isn't deleted physically, just that space is marked as deleted by the ssd, the data is still there and can be extracted using various tools/ applications.
The only way to truly format or remove any evidence from the drive is to just completely fill the ssd with a bunch of crap and then format it, now the written data is useless.

Its important to mention that due to how ssds work, you Will have your your ssd slightly degraded, but it shouldn't matter that much.
 
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When you do a 'quick format', it "deletes" the files but they remain on disk for future data recovery. If you do a 'slow format', it will delete and erase each sector one by one, then writes '0' on it. This makes it difficult if not impossible for data recovery softwares to extract data from the disk.

If you want an additional layer of security, try using Bleach Bit. It is a a forensic recovery proof data wiping software and it is open source: https://www.bleachbit.org/

There was a famous incident with Bleach Bit where Hillary Clinton's tech guy asked reddit for a secure data wiping recommendation and was recommended Bleach Bit. This post was was discovered and Bleach Bit was discussed in court and eventually the deleted data couldn't be retrieved for investigation, thus stalling the case. Full story: https://www.bleachbit.org/news/bleachbit-stifles-investigation-hillary-clinton
 
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