Secure erase partition only on SSD, not the whole thing

Question

I have a 512 SSD which is partitioned into essentially two 256 areas. One for Windows, the other for Linux (Ubuntu). Neither is encrypted. I want to clean my system up, but am only concerned about the linux partition. I understand you can not securely delete files from ssd due to the firmware deciding where to put data.

My question is if the linux partition is wiped/formatted then encrypted with a reinstall, will that sufffice or will the old data be spread across partitions (wear-leveling)?

This may seem like a silly question, but my knowledge of this sort of thing is limited.

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 04 '18 at 08:57

2

Wear leveling is independent of partitions. All of your data is spread out over all of the flash chips in the SSD.

answered Oct 04 '18 at 08:57

Josef

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While generally true there are secure designs that erase returned blocks. – zaph Oct 04 '18 at 21:25
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@zaph which would still be independent of partitions – Josef Oct 05 '18 at 08:57
So I read from that the whole disc would need to be dealt with – tim.massey Oct 11 '18 at 03:39

Secure erase partition only on SSD, not the whole thing

1 Answers1