
The NVMe storage command line interface utility (nvme-cli) is the standard open source tool to manage NVMe SSDs in Linux.
Generic ssd utility software software#
If you need to dispose of an SSD and had at some point stored unencrypted data on it, or if the decryption key may have been compromised, you might choose physical destruction.NVM Express technology is designed from the ground up for SSDs to create more efficient, scalable, high performance storage interfaces.īelow is a list of open source software that can be used in parallel with NVMe™ technology to further enhance SSD management and performance. If the drive is fully encrypted and there is no worry of the decryption key being used, a simple format will work. This way, even if an attacker did recover data from the SSD, it would be encrypted and unreadable. Best practicesĭon't store data you want to protect unencrypted on a Solid State Drive encrypt the whole drive from the beginning. PartedMagic and GParted (listed above) include recovery options. A number of data recovery software packages are available, ranging from freeware to commercial software products. Use data recovery software to verify that the SSD no longer contains data. Verify that the drive has been securely erased If the above methods fail and the data absolutely must be made irretrievable, physically destroy the drive. Contact the drive manufacturer to see if this option is available and enabled. In such cases, you may be able to quickly sanitize the device by deleting the encryption key, which renders the data on the drive irretrievable. Many recently introduced SSDs encrypt data by default. If you cannot locate the manufacturer of your SSD, or if the manufacturer does not provide software for securely erasing the drive, you can try using a generic utility: Use the instructions provided by the manufacturer to erase the SSD. Many manufacturers offer software that allows for securely erasing the drive, as well as other functions such as updating firmware or checking the health of the drive. If possible, use software provided by the manufacturer of the drive to erase an SSD. To securely erase data from a solid-state drive, use one of the following methods: Standard secure deletion tools damage SSDs by performing an unnecessary number of additional writes without being able to tell where the data is written. Wiping programs like DBAN have a hard time identifying all the far-flung data blocks, so they don't do a good job of secure deletion on an SSD. A side-effect of wear-leveling is that a file's data blocks aren't always kept adjacent to one another but could be distributed and disjointed. To address this problem on solid-state drives, manufacturers use wear-leveling algorithms that evenly distribute data among SSD blocks, which means that data is constantly moved around on the drive so the blocks will be worn at an equal rate.



This number is typically over 10,000, but it's still possible a user could hit that limit over the life of the storage device. Flash storage has an inherent limitation in that data may only be written to and erased from a given location a certain number of times. To securely erase data, hard disk drives fill the occupied space on the drive with a file consisting of zeroes or execute multiple writes of different characters for more, see Securely wipe disk drives. Standard methods of secure drive erasure do not work with solid-state drives (SSDs). Secure drive erasure is the process of erasing all or part of a storage device so that the data it contained is difficult or impossible to recover. Verify that the drive has been securely erased.
