cl5776
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Posts posted by cl5776
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A simple overwrite, once with zeroes, is all you need to securely delete data, the rest are just wasting time, energy and your hard drive.
Good day. I have been a faithful user of CCleaner for a long time. I feel it is one of the best cleaning products on the market. However, seeing this thread...and the one referenced in the prior post...concerns me. I have to admit, I was under the impression that the more times the application wipes, the better the data will be erased. Therefore, I have been using the Guttman 35 pass option religiously.
This latest time that I used the application, the process is well into its 6th hour. Yes, that was not a typo. I started the process just before 24 came on at 9pm EST and it is now almost 3:30am EST now. A normal scan for me is about 30 minutes to one hour or so, using the Guttman secure file deletion option. Granted, over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing some heavy music downloading. The last scan I ran a few days ago freed up over 8GBs of space. I expected this scan to be about an hour or so and free up as much if not more hard drive space.
I figured I would come to the vendor's site to see if there was anything abnormally wrong with this situation. It comes as a big surprise to realize that doing any more than the normal file deletion is a waste of time. My question is this: If anything more than the normal file deletion is a waste of time, energy, and resources, why is secured file deletion (DOD, NSA, or Guttman) offered as an option?
Thanks
Secure File Deletion differences
in CCleaner
Posted
Hi Augeas and login123. Thank you for the explanations. I just wanted to follow-up. The scan finally completed. It took 8 and a half hours but I recovered over 20GBs of space. I think you may have an idea as to what I am about to state next. Even though I now know that the Gutmann option is relatively pointless, I would be hard pressed to change at this point. I have been using Gutmann for so long that anything "lower" may seen inadequate. I may reduce down to NSA, though.
Thanks for your time.