Secure Erase, Sanitize, Clean all and format

I'm trying to understand the proper use of all Secure Erase, Sanitize (I understand that Secure Erase is to be used for SSD while Sanitize is for HDD), Clean all and format for my SSD and HDD so I have a few questions:

Is "clean all" the same as Secure Erase or Sanitize? or is it different? is there any benefit for the SSD or HDD from using this command after preforming Secure Erase or Sanitize?

After performing Secure Erase or Sanitize what's the proper format to be used? quick format? or the longer format?

If performing Secure Erase or Sanitize then followed by "clean all" is there any point in using the longer format?

Is the longer format the same as "clean all"?

I've seen people mention that "clean all" is bad and affects the lifespan of an SSD, does that also apply to a HDD?

Should "clean all" be completely avoided for SSD?

MK77P said:

I'm trying to understand the proper use of all Secure Erase, Sanitize (I understand that Secure Erase is to be used for SSD while Sanitize is for HDD), Clean all and format for my SSD and HDD so I have a few questions:

Is "clean all" the same as Secure Erase or Sanitize? or is it different? is there any benefit for the SSD or HDD from using this command after preforming Secure Erase or Sanitize?

After performing Secure Erase or Sanitize what's the proper format to be used? quick format? or the longer format?

If performing Secure Erase or Sanitize then followed by "clean all" is there any point in using the longer format?

Is the longer format the same as "clean all"?

I've seen people mention that "clean all" is bad and affects the lifespan of an SSD, does that also apply to a HDD?

Should "clean all" be completely avoided for SSD?

Click to expand...

The clean all affecting SSD lifespan is so exaggerated. Anyway, you only need to use these techniques if selling a pc or giving it away, so who cares if liefspan of an SSD is reduced by a tiny fraction.

Re formatting, a full format is only needed if you suspect the drive may have bad sectors. It is no the same as clean all.

Secure erase is software / manufacturer dependent and is typically more secure than diskpart clean all.

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Depending on why you need secure erase -- the foolproof way is simply to remove the device and give it a few solid hard doses with a hammer.

However if it's because you are giving away a PC and really want to ensure the disk(s) is / are erased where no un-format etc can recover the data - the best way is to load up a bootable program from a USB device and physically write x'00' or random hex digits to every cluster on the device. There's plenty of random digit generators (or even pseudo random digit generators --good enough) in the public domain.

You need to use a bootable device that doesn't use or maintain the file system of the existing OS in any way - the whole point of this method is apart from making the original data un-retrievable is to also destroy any file directory on the device so a clever or malicious hacker can't get the directory and then physically recover the data on those sectors. If you are mega paranoid you can run the program two or 3 times but once should be enough.

Another way is to get the manufacturer's specific low level format utility -- however with so many generic brands of ssd's, hdd's etc even from the same named manufacturer this method may cause more problems than it solves.

Those things about SSD's etc wearing out are really old wives tales way back from when SSD's first started appearing. I've been regularly using an old laptop of around 2016 era with an ssd in it -- number of times I've formatted, and installed windows as well as many different distros of linux - and the original SSD is still working fine - despite probably having a lot more writes than a typical user would do.

Unless you are really unlucky - hardware can always break down or become defective due to all sorts of reasons an SSD is likely to outlast your computer anyway.

It's amazing how long things stick around such as SSD life by writes etc even when they are clearly not true or not applicable any more.

cheers
jimbo

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