Can Beyond Recall be used as SSD/Flash Death Knell?

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Ceyarrecks

Active member
Sep 29, 2020
27
2
Since the life expectancy of SSD & Flash drives is well-known, would Beyond Recall's "SpinRite-esk" ability be usable to literally fry each cell of an SSD/Flash to assure no information could EVER be lifted/discovered from said SSD/Flash drive thus rendering it unusable? [probable use in Top Secret-type environments]
 
@Ceyarrecks There's a whole industry around what's called "secure destruction". I don't know a lot about it other than I came across it in security research I was doing years ago. These vendors claim that physical destruction is the only reliable way to destroy old media with data on it. Of course, they have a vested interest in that. But, they also have a point. Not sure I buy the theory for operational spinning hard drives, which might be erasable (I'm not an expert). But for other media including SSD's, it could be a different story. I get very nervous when I go to a website to look for pricing and the only thing it says is "get a quote". I'm not necessarily recommending the following companies. They're just things I googled.







May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. :cool: Ron
 
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In short, no. You can't "write a SSD to death." If will block your write(s), knowing it can't support any more of them,
Thank you for the response. which seems to suggest SSDs have a "safe the last bit" protocol, which in fact, would retain data, even though it sector is "marked" as unreadable.
 
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@Ceyarrecks There's a whole industry around what's called "secure destruction". I don't know a lot about it other than I came across it in security research I was doing years ago. These vendors claim that physical destruction is the only reliable way to destroy old media with data on it. Of course, they have a vested interest in that. But, they also have a point. Not sure I buy the theory for operational spinning hard drives, which might be erasable (I'm not an expert). But for other media including SSD's, it could be a different story. I get very nervous when I go to a website to look for pricing and the only thing it says is "get a quote". I'm not necessarily recommending the following companies. They're just things I googled.







May your bits be stable and your interfaces be fast. :cool: Ron
Thank you for the response. consider also the use of the free program/ISO known as DBAN (Derrick's Boot and Nuke) which would use DoD standards to write zeros multiple times to each sector. Which of course, would fatigue said drive's ability to re-use each sector. But, this still does not suggest a thorough, UNRECOVERABLE drive.
 
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