Summary

Secure Erase is the secure and safe way to delete data from a Solid State Drive (SSD).
While hard drives require multiple passes of writes to be sure the erase cannot be reversed, using this type of software isn't necessary and lowers the SSD's endurance.

Solidigm™ (formerly Intel®) had End-to-End encryption. This means when your data is saved to the SSD, it is already scrambled, and the SSDs 'crypto' key is needed to read it back out.
A Secure Erase, by default, erases that crypto key (and immediately makes a new/different one). Your data is still there, but it is now virtually useless as the key to decrypt is lost.
Doing this saves a 'write cycle' of the NAND, making your drive last one more write cycle.

If this is unacceptable, there is a media Secure Erase, which will perform an erase of all the media. Your data is now actually gone.
This does lower the SSD's write cycles by 1, therefore lowering the endurance.

When Should I Secure Erase?

If you want to remove all data from the drive, perform a secure erase.

Also, if there are suspected issues with the drive.
The following are problem scenarios to indicate when running a Secure Erase on a Solidigm SSD could help:

• The operating system experiences slowness or freezing.
• Errors occur during the installation of an operating system.
• Failures seen during read/write diagnostics.
• Errors occur during initialization, format, or partitioning of the SSD.
• Suspected issues with data integrity on the SSD.

What tools can I use?

Solidigm provides tools to Secure Erase SSDs.
See Secure Erase SSDs with Solidigm Tools to review which tools and how to perform a secure erase.

The provided links to third-party tools/sites are for your convenience.
We do not endorse the content, products, or services offered.
We do not support third-party tools.

• HDAT2*
• KillDisk*
• DBAN*

Questions? Check out our Community Forum for help.

Issues? Contact Solidigm™ Customer Support:
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