Unfortunately, while TRIM is a better deletion command than on most HDDs, it still only 'forgets' about the file rather than securely erasing it. So most people think just to rely on TRIM to ensure their files are gone. Nobody wants to be restoring from backups after every time a file or folder is deleted. Yet on modern computers with SSD or hybrid drives, regularly erasing everything is clearly more of a problem. In some cases, this might be practical, like with a removable drive where you frequently replace all the data. Unfortunately, this cleans everything off the disk, including user files and operating system data. Disk erasure tools get rid of all pieces of data by overwriting every sector. One approach is to just erase the entire drive. Unfortunately, this means you can't know for sure where your new data goes, making it impossible to locate and overwrite a specific file. The SSD controller can then decide where to put the updated contents. Wear-levelling manages this limitation by distributing writes evenly across the drive. It's not so simple with SSD - memory cells have a limited capacity of read/write operations. The file occupies a number of sectors on the drive and a wiping tool can locate those sectors and overwrite them. Hard disk drives know exactly where each file is located.

The biggest issue is that SSDs don't store files the way HDDs do. * Skip to step-by-step instructions* What Is the Biggest Challenge for Wiping Selected Files on SSD? In this blog we’ll explain the issues with wiping selected files on SSD, as well as provide you with 3 easy steps to overcome this challenge. And what if you're using a removable drive to transfer files to a third party? Or taking your laptop overseas?

Many organizations are often legally required to delete personal data, such as the ' Right to Be Forgotten' in GDPR or the ' Right to Erasure' in LGPD. With some data this might not matter, but with sensitive files you may want to make sure it's really gone. The bad news, however, others can recover your deleted files too. The good news is this means you have a chance of recovering the file you just accidentally deleted, just with considerably more difficulty than with a traditional hard drive. And while SSDs are supposed to delete your files immediately using a command called 'TRIM', it’s often unreliable. Unfortunately, with most storage methods, that isn't the case. How to delete files on SSD? You hit the delete button and the file is gone, right?

Best file deletion programs