Secure Erase on Asus Z170-A

typographie · November 3, 2015

I'm planning to do a clean install of Windows tonight, and I remember reading that my motherboard (Asus Z170-A) has the ability to secure erase an SSD from the BIOS. I understand that this can improve an SSD's performance in some situations, and this is a good opportunity to do it.

However, my motherboard's manual suggests that I should read the compatibility list allegedly on Asus's website to ensure I'm not going to murder my 128 GB Crucial M4. The only such compatibility list I can find is dated 2013 and presumably does not pertain to my motherboard. Weirdly, it lists the 64 GB and 256 GB M4's as compatible, and omits my 128 GB version.

So is this worth doing? And does anyone know a way to ensure that my Crucial CT128M4SSD2 is compatible with this feature of the Asus Z170-A? Thanks!

scottyseng · November 3, 2015

-snip-

I don't think it's worth it at all. You're going to do a clean install anyway. Windows will run TRIM on your SSD and your SSD will garbage collect it anyway since you pretty much are going to empty out the drive during the format for the clean install anyway.

If you have Windows 8 or 10, you can just run TRIM on the drive manually yourself (I think Windows sets itself to do it automatically every month).

You can also use Defraggler to empty out the empty space (Defraggler does not defrag SSDs...it optimizes them). But yeah, TRIM pretty much handles everything for you.