I want to erase my 1TB WD Elements SSD. What’s the best way to do that without wearing down the SSD?
If this were an internal drive, I would use PartedMagic to do a secure erase, but that tends to kill USB-connected SSDs.
Thank you.
A cryptoerase will throw away the encryption key and render your data unrecoverable. That doesn’t consume any P/E cycles, but eventually you’ll end up erasing the whole drive anyway.
That said, I don’t know if your model supports cryptographic erase.
The most effective and safe way to erase your 1TB WD Elements SSD without wearing it down is to use a secure erase utility provided by the manufacturer or a third-party tool. This will ensure that all data is completely and permanently erased from the drive.
The specific steps may vary depending on the tool you choose, but in general, the process will involve booting from a USB or CD containing the secure erase utility, selecting the drive you want to erase, and following the prompts to initiate the erase process.
It’s important to note that secure erase utilities typically perform a series of write operations to the entire drive, which can put some additional wear on the SSD. However, this is a necessary part of the erasure process and should not significantly impact the lifespan of the drive.
Additionally, you may want to consider using a tool that supports the ATA Secure Erase command, which is specifically designed for erasing SSDs and can be more efficient than other methods.
Before erasing your drive, make sure to back up any important data as it will be permanently deleted and cannot be recovered once the erase process is complete.
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Jose2020,
Thank you for the reply. Can you provide a link to the WD utility which will do a Secure Erase on a WD Elements SSD? I looked for it and couldn’t find it.
For example, the page titled Software for easystore Portable and Desktop Drives at Software for easystore Portable and Desktop Drives provides a download link for WDDriveUtilities_Win, which “Features the ability to Erase and format drive” but when I install and run it, it says “Attach a supported WD drive.” even though the WD EasyStore SSD is attached.
I have installed WD Dashboard 3.8.29 which recognizes my WD Elements SSD and seems to be able to do a Secure Erase on some WD drives but warns in red text that it will not work on my WD Elements SE SSD and to create a bootable USB drive to perform Secure Erase. However, the operation to create a bootable USB drive has failed on 2 different fresh SanDisk flash drives.
