Zero a drive?

[mpavao81]

So i just ordered 2 F120 SSD's online, and I saw an article saying that you should zero a SSD before using it. Does anyone know of any software to do this, or is this something that would come with the drive. Im not sure how to preform a low level format.

thanks.

 

[Ubrales]

Use the tools within Windows to do the formatting. NTFS

 

[foscooter]

HDDErase, ASClean, OCZ Toolbox (only for OCZ drives?), Intel Toolbox (only for Intel drives?).

HDDErase is a DOS based utility, so to use it, you need to be able to make a bootable disk: floppy, USB, or CD. This can be a PITA! You can try a utility called the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows, which I think had HDDErase included in it?

Others toolboxes working within Windows, but the drive you want to clean can not be the primary (bootable) drive, so you need a machine already running Windows to use them.

But formatting the drive within Windows install should be plenty, as stated above.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I suspect that what you heard, if it was specific to SSDs, refers to something different.

Any hard drive should be partitioned and formatted before first use. I suspect that what you were reading was referring to a Secure Erase, to ensure that the drive knows that all of its blocks are empty. Tom's does this to an SSD between passes of performance testing.

More than you ever wanted to know can be found here: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-88/NISTSP800-88_rev1.pdf
or just download the Secure Erase utility from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) CMRR site here: http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

 

[mpavao81]

Best answer selected by mpavao81.