How to Wipe SSD? Securely Wipe your SSD Without Destroying It

BitRaser^® Knowledge Base

How to Wipe SSDs?

August 25, 2021

This KB shares simple steps to wipe SSDs using ‘BitRaser Drive Eraser’ – a certified and secure software for wiping all types of Solid State Drives & Hard Drives. IT asset managers can use this DIY tool to erase the SSDs on their company premises.

Solid-State Drives (SSDs) are remarkably faster than HDDs and generally resilient to failure due to physical impact because, unlike HDDs, they don’t have any moving components. Also, SSDs are inherently complex in terms of their data storage mechanism. While erasing SSDs one needs to be careful in choosing the right method as data wiping methods that work on a hard drive, may not be suitable or deemed fit for erasing SSDs. Data-bearing SSDs carry data leakage risks when the organization resells, reallocates, or disposes of them without wiping or erasing them beforehand.

Here’s a list of the type of solid-state drives you can wipe using the tool:

Portable USB SSDs
SATA SSD (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment SSD)
mSATA or mini-SATA SSDs
M.2 SSDs with AHCI or NVMe
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) SSDs with NVMe
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) drives
U.2 SSDs (2.5” and 3.5”)

Steps to Wipe SSDs using BitRaser Drive Eraser

Please follow these steps to start wiping one or multiple SSDs within 15 minutes.

Requirements:

USB flash drive: 2 GB or higher capacity to create bootable wiping media
Internet: Wi-Fi or Ethernet
Desktop or laptop: to connect the SSD for wiping

You can watch this video to get visual instructions for the steps below:

Stage 1: Download BitRaser Drive Eraser ISO from the cloud [Duration: 5 minutes]

Sign in to your BitRaser cloud account using the credentials emailed to you post-purchase.
Click the 'Download BitRaser Drive ISO' link in the dropdown menu.

Stage 2: Prepare Bootable USB Media to Erase SSD [Duration: 5 minutes]
This step prepares a bootable USB wiping media by burning BitRaser ISO on the USB drive, as follows:

Go to https://rufus.ie and download the Rufus application. This is an open-source software program that helps create bootable USBs.
Now, Install the ‘Rufus’ tool and connect the USB flash drive to the host machine.
Launch the Rufus tool and follow the simple instructions. Refer to the image below.

Click on the ‘START’ button and then click ‘YES’ to begin the process of writing the ISO image on USB.

Note:

In case you have a Mac system, you need to download the 'balenaEtcher' utility to prepare the bootable USB. You can download the utility by clicking on the link - https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Next, follow the steps in the below KB to create BitRaser bootable USB on Mac:

https://www.bitraser.com/deployment/how-to-wipe-mac.php

Stage 3: Start Wiping the SSD Using Bootable Media [Duration: 5 minutes]

Connect the bootable USB drive to your PC
Next, plug the SSD that needs to be wiped into the PC
Switch ‘ON’ the system. Press the Function keys to enter the Boot menu

Now Select the bootable USB and press Enter.
The computer will boot, and the 'BitRaser' Menu will appear.
Press Enter to start the 'BitRaser Drive Eraser' software.
‘BitRaser’ Home screen will appear, listing all the SSDs.

Select the SSD you want to erase.
Next, select ‘NIST Purge’ as the ‘Erasure’ Method from the dropdown menu. This method allows the secure erasure of SSDs within 15 seconds and is recommended.
Click the 'Settings' icon in the top menu in order to connect to the internet via ethernet or WIFI. This will help you download licenses from the BitRaser cloud.
Next, refer to the BitRaser deployment guide and follow the instructions from STEP 5 onwards in STAGE 3.

Boot menu

After wiping the SSD (Solid State Drive), BitRaser generates tamper-proof erasure reports & certificates and uploads them automatically to the BitRaser Cloud account.

We hope this article helped you in wiping the SSDs.