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CCleaner Drive Wiper option works with USB drives?


laconfidential

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You can run Drive Wiper against flash devices but whether it works as one would expect is another matter. I would not recommend running it against any solid state device. NAND technology is totallty different from HD and I don't think that you could be sure that everything is overwritten. It's not worth the stress you would put on the device, in my opinion.

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You can run Drive Wiper against flash devices but whether it works as one would expect is another matter. I would not recommend running it against any solid state device. NAND technology is totallty different from HD and I don't think that you could be sure that everything is overwritten. It's not worth the stress you would put on the device, in my opinion.

 

So, how can I safely format my USB drive?

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I guess you mean how do I clean the drive before formatting it? Not only does the construction of flash drives differ, with hidden write areas and overprovisioning to extend the life of the device, but there is so much speculation in various forums (and this one) that it's difficult to know just what's happening.

 

I have read that a format (high. low, some version of FAT, NTFS?) will TRIM the unused blocks. This seems quite reasonable. Of course you need Win7 to enable TRIM. If this is so then after the format the unused blocks will be marked as invalid, and the garbage collection routine will in time set these blocks to empty status, thus wiping all your old data away. But who really knows? Even on the OCZ forums there's endless argument on this.

 

The thing about SSD's is that usage distribution (wear levelling) will eventually write, and overwrite, all free blocks on the device. But it could take years.

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I think that the Heidi thread is a prime example of the confusion that applies to wiping SSD's. Even the developer says that it won't be perfect, in his last post. If you insist on wiping then why not use CC's Drive wiper?

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... If you insist on wiping then why not use CC's Drive wiper?

 

Simple:

 

I don't use CC's Drive Wiper because it is very, very slow!

 

post-51918-0-77001900-1307124646_thumb.jpg

 

I made ​​two short video as an example:

 

Eraser is very fast! See: http://www.mediafire.com/?op93it2rljdbjln (video with only 3MB and 7min)

CC's Drive Wiper is very slow. See: http://www.mediafire.com/?629p981ok4abl5c (video with only 3MB and 7min)

 

My USB drive have 1GB!

 

Eraser: spends 6 minutes

CC's Drive Wiper: spends +1 hour

 

Why CC's Drive Wiper with 1 pass is very slow and Eraser with 1 pass is very fast?

 

I don't like to install many softwares to make the same thing, but the CC's Disk Wipe is very slow! Whatever, I need to the CCleaner for clean my computer!

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You can run Drive Wiper against flash devices but whether it works as one would expect is another matter.

Out of curiosity I tried Drive Wiper for the first time ever on my 2GB USB thumb drive which needed some cleaning and CCleaner just sit there doing absolutely nothing after it successfully formatted the drive. However doing a "normal" Wipe Free Space did work as expected.

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