Wipe it clean

[cliffa]

I cancelled my nMP order from Apple after realizing that a) I had a mysterious, unneeded 150GB directory on my 3,1's boot drive and therefore the stock 250G SSD was fine and b) Amazon had the 6-core nMP in stock. After setting it up, I starting running some benchmarks and found it wasn't as good as I was expecting. That's when I realized that Amazon had sent me the 4-core model by mistake! Luckily, 95% of my stuff is on the external thunderbolt raid so I didn't totally waste all that time.

So, now that I have the right machine here, I need to return the wrong one. What's the best way to completely and safely wipe all my info from the SSD? Should I even bother trying to preserve the OS installation or just delete the partition out from under myself?

 

[Weaselboy]

So, now that I have the right machine here, I need to return the wrong one. What's the best way to completely and safely wipe all my info from the SSD? Should I even bother trying to preserve the OS installation or just delete the partition out from under myself?

Just command-r boot to recovery and use Disk Util to erase Macintosh HD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click Reinstall OS X. That will DL and install the ~5GB OS.

When it gets done and restarts it will take you to a setup screen. Just power down and that point and ship it off.

 

[flatfoot]

Just command-r boot to recovery and use Disk Util to erase Macintosh HD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click Reinstall OS X. That will DL and install the ~5GB OS.

When it gets done and restarts it will take you to a setup screen. Just power down and that point and ship it off.

That won't safely overwrite any personal data on the internal SSD. I'd command-R into the recovery partition, too, but then secure-erase the internal SSD. Although I'm not entirely sure whether secure-erase works for SSDs...

 

[Weaselboy]

That won't safely overwrite any personal data on the internal SSD. I'd command-R into the recovery partition, too, but then secure-erase the internal SSD. Although I'm not entirely sure whether secure-erase works for SSDs...

It is very very difficult to recover erased data from an SSD. Unless the OP has nuclear launch codes on there, he will be fine.

If you command-r to recovery and launch DU, you will find secure erase is greyed out on SSDs.

 

[flatfoot]

... you will find secure erase is greyed out on SSDs.

That's what I actually thought. Never dealt with i myself, but I thought I'd read it somewhere before. Thanks for clearing that up.