Hi. First and foremost, thank you Piriform for providing such a great product with the option of it being free.
When using the drive wiper is the option to have 35 passes <equal to> 1 (Simple Pass) x 35 times run? I ask as a 35 pass is estimated to take 2 days, so would prefer to break in down to shorter 90 minute sessions.
Hope that makes sense and thanks.
Break it down even more by this small truth. On most modern drive 1 secure pass is enough and will cut the drive-life-decreasing wear and tear of multi-pass wiping to much much less
Break it down even more by this small truth. On most modern drive 1 secure pass is enough and will cut the drive-life-decreasing wear and tear of multi-pass wiping to much much less
Thanks for the reply but I'm sorry - I don't understand...
Are you saying that by using the drive wiper it will decrease the life expectancy of the hard drive or it decreases the chances of the hdd failing by wiping free space?
As you can tell, tech of any type is not my strength so please excuse me if I'm not getting the obvious.
. . . using the drive wiper it will decrease the life expectancy of the hard drive . . .
Yes, slightly each time cos it has mechanical parts. Hard disk drives can take just so much stress, then die.
And one pass is sufficient cos writing 0s on top of 0s still get you 0s, so why do it more than once?
Well, if you write a gig a day to the disk (far more than I do) and it lasts five years, you've written around 2,000 gb. A 35-pass overwrite on 500 gb free space (not unusual on today's large disks) will write around 18,000 gb. That's the equivalent of hammering that poor disk non-stop for 45 years.
The cruel irony is that this 35-pass overwrite was created for use on disk coding systems that haven't been produced for well over twenty years. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Thank you for the replies. They've answered my questions comprehensively.