Securely erasing SSD using Filevault

Likely no reason to go beyond 2 except to reinstall the OS.

It would take a little more effort, but I would think booting into Internet Recovery and re-partitioning the disk would be a better plan because you would also destroy the Recovery partition. If you then did a straight reinstall, you would get the original OS that shipped on that Mac which would require you to then upgrade to the current OS. You could avoid that by creating a bootable USB installer first, though.

Unfortunately, you cannot sell your MBP with an OS downloaded from the app store as the license is for the Apple ID used to obtain it (you) and it is not transferable. Any buyer would not appreciate needing your Apple ID and password for updates or a reinstall. So, you need to erase your machine and reinstall the original OS on it. Using internet recovery won't work on yours as it came with an install DVD. If you no longer have that, you can either order one from Apple or get a retail Snow Leopard disk to install.

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf

Excerpt:

3. Transfer.

A. If you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, you may make a

one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form

as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: ℹ the Apple Software is transferred together

with your Apple-branded hardware; (ii) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software,

including all its component parts, printed materials and this License; (iii) you do not retain any

copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage

device; and (iv) the party receiving the Apple Software accepts the terms and conditions of this

License. For purposes of this License, if Apple provides an update (e.g., version 10.11 to 10.11.1) to

the Apple Software, the update is considered part of the Apple Software and may not be

transferred separately from the pre-update version of the Apple Software.

B. If you obtained your license to the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, it is not transferable.

If you sell your Apple-branded hardware to a third party, you must remove the Apple Software from

the Apple-branded hardware before doing so, and you may restore your system to the version of

the Apple operating system software that originally came with your Apple hardware (the “Original

Apple OS”) and permanently transfer the Original Apple OS together with your Apple hardware,

provided that: ℹ the transfer must include all of the Original Apple OS, including all its component

parts, printed materials and its license; (ii) you do not retain any copies of the Original Apple OS,

full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (iii) the party

receiving the Original Apple OS reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of the

Original Apple OS license

You're not asked for an Apple ID when using install DVDs, but you are asked for your admin password. I've always set up a simple one, such as 1 2 3 4 5 and the buyer can change that at any time. Some people suggest that you abort the install before you get to that part so the new owner can set it up on his own; that is great except that they cannot "test drive" it at all when you are showing the machine. So, do the install using a nondescript admin name (no name or something like joe bloe) and simple password which they can change later.

Hello Brandon,

You will need a new step. After turning on FileVault and before erasing the drive, you will need to run an operation to fill up all the free space on the drive. That will give you a better chance of erasing more of the unencrypted data. The ways SSDs work, I don't think you would ever be able to erase all of the low-level encrypted data. You should really turn on FileVault immediately after getting an SSD or a machine with an SSD. But for practical purposes, you don't have to worry about those last bits of data. It would take serious forensic skills to access them and there is unlikely to be any sensitive bits in those few remaining, low-level encrypted blocks.

There are disk utilities that will do that more efficiently. You don't want to try it without your own, real data. Filling up the boot disk on OS X will trash the system and often make it unbootable. If you use a tool that is designed to fill up free disk space, it can do it safely and spare you a reformat.

We don't know what Apple plans on doing but typically they keep final version software around and available for a while. For example, not all iTunes versions are available but the final ones to run on certain system versions or hardware are, including iTunes 1.0.1. Apple did removed Mavericks and Yosemite, but anything that can run those two can, in theory, run El Capitan.

If you are installing Snow Leopard, give them the SL disc along with the Leopard ones. The Leopard ones are considered as much part of the machine package at the power cord, and if you are providing SL you also need to surrender the disc used to install it.

Sorry. I would do it from the command line with "diskutil". There are a few other scripts one could use too. I am unfamiliar with other tools. I think Apple's Disk Utility used to perform operations like this, but they were removed since, technically, it is impossible on an SSD drive.