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How do I zero out my disk?

TSX

TSX

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 1, 2008
2,632
80
Texas
I want to zero out my HD and I'm in mountain lion. How do I go about doing this?
 
1 pass,3 pass or 7 pass? And how long will it take for a 1 TB drive.
 
It depends on which type of security you want to implement. If you really want to make sure the data is never recovered ever use the 7 pass option.
 
TSX said:
So a secure erase is an option in disk utility im guessing?
Click to expand...

zerop.png


TSX said:
1 pass,3 pass or 7 pass? And how long will it take for a 1 TB drive.
Click to expand...

A Zero pass on a 120GB drive takes about a hour at USB2 speeds (33MB/s). A good 1TB HDD today can hit about 130MB/s. So best case is about 2 hours, worst case 8 1/2.

dastinger said:
It depends on which type of security you want to implement. If you really want to make sure the data is never recovered ever use the 7 pass option.
Click to expand...

While it might have been true sometime in the 70's/80's, it's in no way true today. The density of today's hard disks prevent any recovery after the drive has been Zeroed.

For a HDD all you need to do is a single Zero pass, anything more and your wasting your time. SSD's on the other hand need to have the Secure Erase ATA command sent to them (and this only works if the SSD manufacturer implemented it correctly).
.​
 
Last edited:
Will do! I was talking mostly based on what OSX itself says (or said?) when describing the different security options available.
 
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