Selling my macbook pro - How do i prepare my SSD

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Selling my macbook pro - How do i prepare my SSD

Hi All,

I have recently bought a new MBPr and am selling my old MBP.

I have read through a number of forums for this answer and it seems quite difficult to fin a definitive answer. I have maxed out the RAM and put a Crucial M4 256 SSD (in the one I’m selling) in after apple care ran out. Anyway my questions are:

What do I have to do to securely overwrite the data on my SSD? - It seems complex in comparison to zeroing out a traditional drive.
Can I just reinstall my original OS (essentially reformat), which will erase my existing data, and that will be the end of it? Will my old data truly be gone?

The disk utility tool gives the option of zeroing out the SSD but all the forums say DO NOT do this. Things must be erased a different way. Please feel free to explain what the best method is (if it's required) and only I you really know, from experience, what to do.

Anyway, thanks for the help. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I have 1 week to figure it out and make it happen as it sells next Saturday on eBay.

Thanks all.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Feb 23, 2014 2:07 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 23, 2014 2:19 AM in response to m.quine

You need to boot into Internet Recovery (if your model can) and use Disk Utility to erase your SSD. Not that SSds can't be securely erased and that the right forensic data recovery service could still slavage some data from the drive. If you don't have a model that supports Internet Recovery, use the discs that came with your system and boot from disc one to erase the hard drive. WHether through IR or the discs, install the ORIGINAL system that shipped with the Mac you are selling,

See - How to prepare your Mac for sale.

Good luck,

Clinton

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Answer 2

m.quine Author

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Feb 23, 2014 3:10 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Thanks for the info and link.

It's actually links like that are making we want to not sell the mac with the SSD in it. Basically it is recommending not selling if you have an SSD in or replacing the original HD before selling.

A real pain because I have posted it on eBay with the SSD included.

I've reinstalled the original OS but according the link provided and many other forums I’m at risk selling with an SSD.

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Answer 3

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Feb 23, 2014 3:20 AM in response to m.quine

There is no reason not to sell it with the SSD installed. Not sure what link you are looking at but I have never seen any mentioning removing a SSD and putting the original HDD back in before selling it.

The only thing you absolutely need to do is reinstall the original version of OS X that came on it when it was new shipped from the factory and IF it came with System Reinstall DVD discs you Supply them with the sale.

Why are YOU At Risk selling with the SSD installed? That is not true. You are at more risk selling any computer with a rotating HDD installed that you have been using for year storing your personal info on. You can get DATA from all spinning HDD once anythiing has been written to them. That is very hard to do from a SSD.

m.quine wrote:

Thanks for the info and link.

It's actually links like that are making we want to not sell the mac with the SSD in it. Basically it is recommending not selling if you have an SSD in or replacing the original HD before selling.

A real pain because I have posted it on eBay with the SSD included.

I've reinstalled the original OS but according the link provided and many other forums I’m at risk selling with an SSD.

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Answer 4

m.quine Author

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Feb 23, 2014 3:56 AM in response to LowLuster

Hi Lowluster,

The particular portion of the link that Clinton provided is:

Why bother with a secure erase? Because the buyer can use file recovery software to find any files that may still be on the drive somewhere, and some of those files may contain important data. See Recovering deleted files for more information about this.

One important thing to note is that all this is irrelevant if your computer has a solid-state drive (SSD). Such drives have load-balancing firmware, as flash storage wears out with use. The firmware tries to ensure that all areas of storage are used equally, so that particular areas don’t wear out prematurely. Unfortunately, this means that an SSD cannot be securely erased. When Disk Utility tries to write data over the entire drive, the SSD’s firmware will write that data where it chooses, and that may mean that some portions of the SSD remain unerased, and thus may contain recoverable data. If you have sensitive information on an SSD, you should probably replace the SSD with a new one before selling, or simply not sell the computer.

This is exactly what a number of other forums have been saying. You must understand why i am slightly paranoid about selling with the SSD if many pages advise that SSD can not be fully erased and the actual proper way to dispose of them is via incineration; whereas a traditional HD can be zeroed 7 times for military grade data removal OR 35 times if you are a paranoid schizophrenic.

I have limited knowledge of this type of thing therefore attempt to rely on reputable forums for my information. Whether they are reputable, based on my knowledge however, is also debatable.

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Answer 5

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Feb 23, 2014 4:11 AM in response to m.quine

SSDs can be fully erased. Just do a search for Secure Erase SSD on Google. You have to boot the system from a Linux distro and run a certain program but it can be done.

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20115106-285/how-to-securely-erase-an-ssd-dr ive/

It is not good to do it with Disk Utility as that Secure Erase function writes to the drive whatever # of time you set it to. This is not good for SSDs because of the limited # of Write cycles all of them have.

To top this off lets talk about who you are selling it to and what is their purpose in buying it.

Sure there are people out there that would like to get their hands on as much User Data as possible to possibly use that data to steal something from someone. But for them to go around to all the auction sites and buy every computer up for sale to Maybe collect data that they could use to steal something from someone is at best very paranoid.

The person you might sell it to is looking to use it just like you have without any thought to what was on it anytime in the past.

Best of luck to you.

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