Hey guys,

I want to shred/sanitize my SSDs. If it was a normal harddrive I would stick to ShredOS / nwipe, but since SSD’s seem to be a little more complicated, I need your advice.

When reading through some posts in the internet, many people recommend using the software from the manufacturer for sanitizing. Currently I am using the SSD SN850X from Western digital, but I also have a SSD 990 PRO from Samsung. Both manufacturers don’t seem to have a specialized linux-compatible software to perform this kind of action.

How would be your approach to shred your SSD (without physically destroying it)?

~sp3ctre

  • glitching@lemmy.ml
    16·
    17 hours ago

    for future reference, encrypt your drives from the get-go. even if it’s not a mobile device, you can use on-device keys to unlock it without a pass-phrase.

    source: used shred on a couple of 3.5" 4 TB drives before selling them, took ages…

    • sp3ctre@feddit.orgOP
      5·
      16 hours ago

      I will take that into consideration. I already encrypted my older laptop (hard drive) with LUKS. Is there something special, when it comes to encrypting SSD’s? Do you experience speed losses of SSD after doing so?

      • glitching@lemmy.ml
        3·
        14 hours ago

        every mobile device I ever owned is encrypted and protected with a reasonably secure pass-phrase so losing it is no big deal. it is conceivable someone could forensic the shit out of my setup but that is highly unlikely; it’s far more likely it’ll get wiped and sold or parted out.

        I’ve done no benchmarks but I haven’t experienced any issues ever. the oldest linux device I own is a 2011 MBP (i7-2635qm, so quadcore) and I don’t perceive any speed degradation; it’s possible 1st gen Core i5/i7 could have issues as those don’t have AES-NI in hardware or sumsuch plus they’re SATA2 only, but those would be 15+ years old at this point.

        with btrfs that has on-the-fly compression, copy-on-write, and deduping, everything works seamlessly, even when I have database-spanking applications in local development.

        so the only thing I’ve changed recently is encrypting every device I have, not just the mobile ones. the standalone devices get unlocked with a key-file from the local filesystem so they boot without the prompt. selling/giving away any of those drives, mechanical or SSD, is now a non-issue.