The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Is it bad for your SSD to use a drive wiper?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Jazz888, Jun 9, 2011.

  1. Jazz888

    Jazz888 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    26
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Is it bad for your SSD to use a drive wiper?
     
    Jazz888, Jun 9, 2011
    #1
  2. tilleroftheearth

    tilleroftheearth Wisdom listens quietly...

    Reputations:
    5,398
    Messages:
    12,692
    Likes Received:
    2,717
    Trophy Points:
    631
    Yes, yes it is.
     
    tilleroftheearth, Jun 9, 2011
    #2
  3. sugarkang

    sugarkang Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    185
    Messages:
    602
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Drive Wiper:

    The reason why we use them on HDDs is because deleted files are still sitting on them. A drive wiper writes "over" the already deleted data so that it cannot be recovered.

    The wiper isn't really "wiping." It's actually just "writing over."

    SSDs have lifetimes measures in how many "writes" they can do. Therefore, doing a wipe mean doing a gigantic write, exactly the size of your drive.

    It's not that big of a deal if you're just going to do it once. However, it's a bad idea to set it to clean automatically (like in CCleaner). What you want to do is use Secure Erase instead if you're worried about data retrieval by unauthorized users.
     
    sugarkang, Jun 9, 2011
    #3
  4. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    3,905
    Messages:
    6,116
    Likes Received:
    89
    Trophy Points:
    216
    If it's a 'drive wiper' like DBAN, you will definitely do a terrible lot of unnecessary writes to the drive.
     
    namaiki, Jun 9, 2011
    #4
  5. Jazz888

    Jazz888 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    26
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    oh god!! Thanks heaps for the replies!! So basically doing wipes as provided by CC is shortening the life of my SSD
     
    Jazz888, Jun 9, 2011
    #5
  6. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    3,905
    Messages:
    6,116
    Likes Received:
    89
    Trophy Points:
    216
    If your drive has TRIM (which it probably does), do not use the 'wipe free space' option.
     
    namaiki, Jun 9, 2011
    #6