Windows 10: Will formatting my portable ssd erase everything ?

I'm upgrading my samsung portable 500gb ssd and giving this one away. Will formatting it be enough to make my data not recoverable ? Quick format vs not quick make a difference ?

Apparently Samsung Magician only works for internal ssd's.

Thank you.

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:)

 

Securely erasing old SSD - Ubuntu

Very inexperienced with Linux and have been playing around lately with Ubuntu 17.10 successfully recovering data from a bad HDD, quite impressed by it also.

First question is. I have an old OCZ Vertex 3 120GB that has been lying around forever and want to wipe it to factory settings and install Ubuntu on it (so I don't need to run Windows side by side on my current OS drive). I'm assuming the easiest way to do this is to do the following?

• Boot Ubuntu from USB installer
• Select 'Try Ubuntu before you install it'
• Open the Terminal and
• Use the Command-line to Simple Secure Erase i.e. hdparm --security-erase PASS /dev/sdX

My second question is, if the above will work do I then need to format the entire SSD in ext4 or does the installer by default format/partition the SSD when 'Erase disk and install Ubuntu' is selected?

 

Formatting an SSD without using Quick Format Option


This process will degrade the performance of your SSD. Unlike hard drives where new information is written directly over old information with no decline in speed. SSD's are blazingly fast when writing to empty NAND. However if there is no empty NAND available the SSD process changes to a two-step approach where the NAND has to be "cleaned" and then written to. This slows down the SSD considerably. (The trim command under the windows optimize function essentially identifies the old, not needed, information and assists the SSD in pre-cleaning the NAND's so that the SSD can operate at full speed).
The only way to completely clean SSD is through a process known as secure erase. It essentially provides a blank SSD to write on. Formatting is nothing like that and a quick format essentially clears the record of the information that is written on an SSD so that Windows can treat it like a blank SSD, but the SSD still has to go through the two-step process. The NAND's are still full of old information and are effectively cleaned during periods of non-activity. A full format on the other hand will effectively write on every single NAND completely filling the SSD. If you want to start off with a clean fast SSD, use the manufacturers software and/or other generic software designed to secure erase the SSD.

 

Secure SSD formatting

Thank you very much for a quick reply and your suggestions.

Apologies for not giving more details about the model: it's HP SSD S700. I've completely forgotten to turn to HP site in the first place. Here's the information I found there:

"To securely erase all user data from an SSD and restore the drive to a fresh-out-of-box performance state, the National Institute of Standards Technology supports the “SECURITY ERASE UNIT” command. (...) This command does not actually write anything to the drive. Instead it causes the SSD to apply a voltage spike to all available NAND in unison, resetting every available block of space in one operation forcing the drive to “forget” all stored data which cannot be recovered by even advanced data recovery services.".

which is followed by a 5 step instruction how to do it on HP devices provided with this command in their UEFI.

I can't understand why they make life so complicated instead of giving (like other manufacturers) a simple tool downloadable from their web page.

Anyway, I'll stick to your advice to using quick / full formatting.