Researchers at the University of California in San Diego have found that the tried and true techniques used to erase a typical hard drive aren"t quite as effective when used on solid state drives(SSD).
The chart above shows the different methods the researchers used on the drives and how successful they were at completely removing the data, they found that even the most successful wipes left at least 10MBs of readable data from a 100MB file. Even using techniques that overwrite all of the data with random data still left nearly all of the original data intact.
To find out how effective each of the wipe techniques was, the researchers went as far as to dismantle the drives and access the data through the pins on the chips. After all their tests, the researchers concluded that the most effective way to prevent data from being stolen from the drives is to encrypt them right from the moment you get it. This will also help protect your data if the drive is stolen.
The researchers at the University said that they are using this data in an attempt to come up with a way to more effectively clean a SSD for disposal. SSDs are still making their way into the market, according to InformationWeek they currently only hold about 2% of the laptop market but that number is expected to double by 2014.
Image source: University of California San Diego