Q: How do i safely erase a ssd drive so as i give it away.

See the following:

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-securely-erase-a-solid-state-drive-on-mac-os-x-1580 603733

http://osxdaily.com/2013/04/22/secure-erase-mac-ssd-drive-recovery-mode/

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/146733/why-is-a-secure-erase-not-necess ary-for-ssdshttp://osxdaily.com/2013/04/22/secure-erase-mac-ssd-drive-recovery-mode/

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Note there is no good answer

Because the drive uses randomly assigned block numbers, a simple erase makes all files unrecoverable for anything except Nuclear Secrets.

For Nuclear secrets, no number of overwrites is enough, so Defense department rules says, "shred the drive".

Erasing the drive with the default settings will eliminate the data normally recoverable by third-party Utilities such as Norton.

Additional passes with additional patterns will take much longer, but will not give any additional assurance that the data are completely removed.

A very good solution is to encrypt the SSD and then reformat it.

The reformat will erase the encryption key so that the encrypted data is irrecoverable by any technique.

No. After the reformat of an encrypted disk, it will no longer require a password. The reformat erases the need for that. So the disk no longer even recognizes that it was ever encrypted. Hence there is no way to recover the data even if you have the password.

ALL the discussions about completely erasing the data are based on your selling it to someone who hates you (like your ex-wife), but does not have the resources of the US National Security Agency to recover the data to blackmail you or steal your identity.

If all you want is for your friend to be able to use it, use regular ERASE, done in 10 seconds, the drive will be completely blank for all normal uses.

There is no need to anguish over whether the erasure is "good enough" for various purposes.

this article may be what you were fishing for:

What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support

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