Does using 'Secure Erase' on SSD's kill the drive slowly everytime?

[Actual_Criminal]

I remember reading a few years ago about how SSD's can only rewrite a number of times and cannot last indefinitely (essentially) like a HDD.

 

So let's say I have a 1GB file on a 250GB SSD and use a secure erase feature to permanently delete the file. 

 

-Would this mean that if I did this 250 times, the SSD would eventually be bricked? 

-If no, but it would still wear out the drive a little, are there any alternative methods to permanently delete a file on an SSD without it wearing?

 

For example, couldn't I just use the 'Cut' and 'Paste' feature, by moving the desired file(s) from the SSD to a HDD and then secure erase them whilst they are sitting on the HDD, since the HDD wouldn't suffer from wear?

 

-Also, does degradation issue of SSDs differ between SATA and NVME SSDs?

[Electronics Wizardy]

What exact secure earse feature are you using? The drive has a secure erase feature often that will wipe the whole drive, but this is for the whole drive, not for files. 

 

If its a program in windows/linux thats just for a specific file, it will count towards writes. 

 

Generally don't worry about writes on a SSD, they will handles way more writes than there rated for. 

 

Both NVMe and SATA drives have the same write limits.

[Actual_Criminal]

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What exact secure earse feature are you using? The drive has a secure erase feature often that will wipe the whole drive, but this is for the whole drive, not for files. 

 

If its a program in windows/linux thats just for a specific file, it will count towards writes. 

 

Generally don't worry about writes on a SSD, they will handles way more writes than there rated for. 

 

Both NVMe and SATA drives have the same write limits.

It is a secure delete option in my anti-virus (Kaspersky), but I can do it straight from Windows and right-click on individual files and the option is there via the AV.

 

I think CC Cleaner has an option to do it as well, but it is for the whole drive only.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Actual_Criminal said:

It is a secure delete option in my anti-virus (Kaspersky), but I can do it straight from Windows and right-click on individual files and the option is there via the AV.

 

I think CC Cleaner has an option to do it as well, but it is for the whole drive only.

That secure earse is basically writing over the file and adds to writes. But then for almost all uses, SSD writes won't matter.

[NobleGamer]

39 minutes ago, Actual_Criminal said:

It is a secure delete option in my anti-virus (Kaspersky), but I can do it straight from Windows and right-click on individual files and the option is there via the AV.

 

43 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That secure earse is basically writing over the file and adds to writes. But then for almost all uses, SSD writes won't matter.

You should know the secure delete of individual files works with HDDs, but it doesn't work with SSDs because SSDs spread writes evenly over the NAND memory to avoid premature failure. Each part of NAND memory can only be written to a limited number of times compared to how many times a particular sector that an HDD can be written to.

 

Therefore, any attempt to overwrite a file on an SSD just results in the write happening elsewhere within the NAND. The only way to guarantee a secure erase is to do one of the entire SSD, absent some kind of specific tool from the SSD maker (which I don't think exists).

 

There's a more in depth explanation of why all this is true here: https://superuser.com/questions/22238/how-to-securely-delete-files-stored-on-a-ssd

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, NobleGamer said:

You should know the secure delete of individual files works with HDDs, but it doesn't work with SSDs because SSDs spread writes evenly over the NAND memory to avoid premature failure. Each part of NAND memory can only be written to a limited number of times compared to how many times a particular sector that an HDD can be written to.

I wouldn't say this doesn't work for SSD. It makes the file not accessible using normal tools, as the data isn't in the user visible space of the drive. And the cells the data was in are not going to be easily able to fetch in the correct order, and likely the cells would be erased soon in a background task. Maybe possible to get the file with some data recovery, but gonna be much harder than if the file was delete normally(and trim hasn't run yet).

 

 

But if deleting files securely is a big issue, just encrypt the drive, then its basically all deleted if someone doesn't have the key.

[NobleGamer]

21 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

But if deleting files securely is a big issue, just encrypt the drive, then its basically all deleted if someone doesn't have the key.

The is the answer for securing SSD files and their deletions.

 

22 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I wouldn't say this doesn't work for SSD.

Well I wouldn't believe a claim that secure erase DOES in fact overwrite the specific cells that were written to when the way SSDs do that is independent of OS level instructions.

 

I otherwise agree that running TRIM can certainly help drastically decrease chance of recovering deleted data because it is a hardware level operation that basically wipes the cells of data that was previously marked as deletion.

 

OP please wait for someone else to reconcile or refute the specific facts about how an SSD works (like in my prior linked resource) before relying on file-by-file secure erase.

[kokosnh]

What kind of „secure erase” are we talking about? 
 

the ata secure erase command, send on to the SSD will erase all data on whole SSD ( it should return all NAND memory cells, to a empty state ) it not writing anything to nand, and is healthier for nand, then formatting it. 
 

But after secure erase, to use SSD you need to initiate it, and format it in some file system, so it will count as 1 P/E cycle for nand

 

ps. And yes, secure erase is the only method of securely erasing data  from SSD.  Even rewriting it, can leave couple percent of data behind.

 

as for encryption and just deleting it, well it depends, that data will be there, just not visible. trim command can help, but it's hard to verify if it did.