How do you secure wipe a hard drive these days?

[kat.hayes]

I have some good old fashion 4TB hard drives that I would like to securely wipe before giving away, and when I am in Disk Utility I do not see a secure wipe option when I go to the Erase option. How do you securely wipe a hard drive?

Thanks

 

[chscag]

Try this freeware program:

Active@ KillDisk for Mac (Apple macOS)

Active@ KillDisk Freeware for Mac (Apple OS X)

www.killdisk.com

 

[chabig]

From Disk Utility help:

1. Choose View > Show All Devices.
2. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button.
3. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.
   If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase—it’s at the top of the hierarchy.
4. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format.
5. Enter a name.
6. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK. Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device.
7. Click Erase, then click Done.

The secure erase option isn't available for SSDs, but it ought to be there for rotating hard drives like yours. Carefully follow the instructions above. Do you see it?

 

[kat.hayes]

From Disk Utility help:

1. Choose View > Show All Devices.
2. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button.
3. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.
   If the Scheme pop-up menu isn’t available, make sure you selected the storage device you want to erase—it’s at the top of the hierarchy.
4. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose a file system format.
5. Enter a name.
6. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK. Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. If the Security Options button is not available, Disk Utility cannot perform a secure erase on the storage device.
7. Click Erase, then click Done.

The secure erase option isn't available for SSDs, but it ought to be there for rotating hard drives like yours. Carefully follow the instructions above. Do you see it?

Thanks!