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How do you securely erase data from a thumb (USB/flash) drive? With traditional (magnetic/spinny) hard drives, it used to be that you could use various tools to simply overwrite with random data, ...
#2: Post edited
by
matthewsnyder
·
2023-08-15T02:02:44Z (9 months ago)
- How do you securely erase data from a thumb (USB/flash) drive?
- With traditional (magnetic/spinny) hard drives, it used to be that you could use various tools to simply overwrite with random data, and make it unrecoverable. You even have tools like [`shred`](https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/shred-invocation.html) that can do it for a specific file.
- Many of these don't work on solid state devices (which most thumb drives are) because those have less predictable patterns over where data get written.
Does that mean that it's impossible to erase an SSD beyond recovery? Or is there a way to do it? Can you do individual files too, or is it only possible for the whole drive?
- How do you securely erase data from a thumb (USB/flash) drive?
- With traditional (magnetic/spinny) hard drives, it used to be that you could use various tools to simply overwrite with random data, and make it unrecoverable. You even have tools like [`shred`](https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/shred-invocation.html) that can do it for a specific file.
- Many of these don't work on solid state devices (which most thumb drives are) because those have less predictable patterns over where data get written.
- Does that mean that it's impossible to erase an SSD beyond recovery? Or is there a way to do it? Can you do individual files too, or is it only possible for the whole drive?
- Note: I want to still use the drive after the erase, so no melting it in the raging flames of Mt. Doom.
#1: Initial revision
by
matthewsnyder
·
2023-08-14T23:44:39Z (9 months ago)
How to securely erase data from a thumb (solid state) drive
How do you securely erase data from a thumb (USB/flash) drive? With traditional (magnetic/spinny) hard drives, it used to be that you could use various tools to simply overwrite with random data, and make it unrecoverable. You even have tools like [`shred`](https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/shred-invocation.html) that can do it for a specific file. Many of these don't work on solid state devices (which most thumb drives are) because those have less predictable patterns over where data get written. Does that mean that it's impossible to erase an SSD beyond recovery? Or is there a way to do it? Can you do individual files too, or is it only possible for the whole drive?