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How do you destroy an SSD?
First, let's focus on some "dont's." These are tried and true methods used to make sure that your data is unrecoverable from spinning hard disk drives. But these don't carry over to the SSD world.
Degaussing – applying a very strong magnet – has been an accepted method for erasing data off of magnetic media like spinning hard drives for decades. But it doesn't work on SSDs. SSDs don't store data magnetically, so applying a strong magnetic field won't do anything.
Spinning hard drives are also susceptible to physical damage, so some folks take a hammer and nail or even a drill to the hard drive and pound holes through the top. That's an almost surefire way to make sure your data won't be read by anyone else. But inside an SSD chassis that looks like a 2.5-inch hard disk drive is actually just a series of memory chips. Drilling holes into the case may not do much, or may only damage a few of the chips. So that's off the table too.
Erasing free space or reformatting a drive by rewriting it zeroes is an effective way to clear data off on a hard drive, but not so much on an SSD. In fact, in a recent update to its Mac Disk Utility, Apple removed the secure erase feature altogether because they say it isn't necessary. So what's the best way to make sure your data is unrecoverable?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @05:19PM (2 children)
If you already have the heat gun out, just bake the chips with it until the FLASH cells are erased by thermal effects.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday March 17 2017, @06:09PM (1 child)
For how long?
To paraphrase, how do you know when you've heated the chips sufficiently?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @06:23PM
Ask JEDEC, I guess.
Reflow profiles in ovens are a matter of seconds at the max temp (which was a problem with RoHS chips at 260C), and taking chips through the oven more than 3 times is considered asking for trouble (not sure whether the package or the Si is the first to fail).
If you get >300C out of your heat gun and keep the chips at that temperature for a few minutes, I'm gonna guess you're pretty likely to have broken something.
Wasn't there an article a couple week ago about special Si designed to withstand Venus temps? Your FLASH ain't.