[Bglug] Secure erase of an SSD different from HD

[Rashkae]

On 15-12-30 10:56 PM, Andrew Howlett wrote:
>
> i paid $9 for the partition magic iso mentioned in the article. partition magic is a linux distro, fits on a 1G USB stick.
>

For those who would rather use all kind of arcane commands to do it 
themselves:

(Note: risky commands, use at own risk.)

hdparm --security-set-pass NULL /dev/sd?
hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sd?
hdparm --security-disable NULL /dev/sd?

Some BIOSs will pre-emptively disable the security features.  (This 
prevents malware from locking your drive with an unknown password, 
bricking it.)  The easiest way I found around this is to boot the Linux 
environment, then hotplug the SDD you want to blank.

New versions of linux-util suite include a command to trim the entire 
device:  The command is called *blkdiscard*.  This is a good to restore 
the performance of an SSD when re-using the drive, and should 
effectively do the same thing.  *However.*  The standard does not 
require the drive to return null bytes from those sectors before they 
are re-used.  I think most drives will do so, but blkdiscard should 
probably not be used instead of a proper secure-erase.