SSDs require different methods of maintenance from standard hard disk drives. One of the most commonly performed actions is to secure erase the drive. A secure erase differs from a format, and is the only way to completely erase a solid-state drive..

Corsair Force Series solid-state hard drive

 

The most common and user friendly tool we have found for secure erasing SSDs is Parted Magic, an open source tool that is free to download and use. Parted Magic is a standalone partitioning tool and requires no operating system to use. It can be run from any bootable media of sufficient capacity, including Corsair’s Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive.

 Once you have your bootable media prepared, load Parted Magic and select option 1 at the first menu as seen below:

The next two steps involve selecting the Erase Disk function, and then specifying the method of secure erasing. Once you have arrived at the main screen, you’ll need to go to System Tools and select Erase Disk as seen here:

Next, select the Internal: Secure Erase option which will write zeroes to your entire data area:

This step is where you select the disk that you want to erase. Be sure to select the correct disk!

Some drives indicate that they have a password requirement. Select NULL to bypass this and select OK as seen below:

Verify the command to erase the selected drive as illustrated below. Once this command is verified all data will be lost, and cannot be retrieved. You will see a message stating that the operation may take a certain amount of time to complete. Most SSDs will fully secure erase in only a matter of seconds:

Here are some additional resources that may be helpful. Thank you for choosing a Corsair SSD!

Corsair Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive Tool

Corsair How To Guides and Videos

Download Parted Magic