Why Toshiba SSD Secure Erase is Important?
Nowadays, more and more SSDs are implied to people’s computers as replacements of
traditional hard drives, so do Toshiba SSDs. Toshiba SSDs bring many conveniences
like shorter boot up time and faster reading and writing speed to their users.
However, after using SSD for a couple of years, it can be easily found that its
performance has reduced. For example, the system startup time becomes longer. Secure
erase could be counted as one of best solutions to recover the lost performance. In
another situation, when you want to resell or give the SSD to others, it is
important to clean all personal and sensitive information on that disk. Secure Erase
works with ATA command line, which can help prevent your data recovered from
unintended access.
As we know, SSD stores data in a different way to HDD, and you can only wipe data on
sector level. If you format SSD, all content on SSD actually haven’t been erased.
Before SSD writes data to a section, it will scan all pages of the sector, then
erase detected data, then modify and then write information. The more data stored,
the longer writing time will be. A Secure Erase will write zero to every sector and
in that way, aforementioned writing loop will be saved. Naturally, you’ll get faster
speed and more writing times on SSD. That is how you recover SSD’s performance and
prolong SSD lifespan.
What Toshiba SSD Secure Erase Utility Should You Choose?
With so many SSD secure erasing tools on the market, which one should be the most
suitable? Generally speaking, we can take built-in erasing program and third-party
erasing software into consideration since most PC operating systems don’t offer this
service. Let’s see what you’ve got for Toshiba SSD.
Built-in Storage Utilities for Toshiba Q Series SSDs
Like many other SSD manufactures, Toshiba also provides dedicated manage software for
its Q Series and Q300 Pro SSDs. Storage Utilities has “Secure Erase” option in its
menu to deleting all data on Toshiba SSD. Storage Utilities gives four options as
erasing methods, Normal Secure Erase, Enhanced Secure Erase, Block Erase and
Cryptographic Erase. For general data wiping on Toshiba SSD, the first method is
enough. If you want to erase all data without any possibility to recover, choose the
third one.

Well, the steps of operating Storage Utilities are also simple. To ensure Toshiba SSD
is not the boot drive, you need to first create a bootable Linux media with Supplementary
Tools and then boot to that device. Then, launch Storage Utilities and
find Secure Erase in the left side. Next, select a Drive you are
about to erase and select erasing method at the same time. Finally, click onStart and wait for the erasing progress to be completed.

Note: after erasing selected Toshiba SSD, you’ll lose all content.Backup important files if
you need to. Installed system on that SSD will be wiped as well. So please make sure
you’ve understood what you’re doing.
Easier Free Erase Utilities for All Toshiba SSDs
As we know, Toshiba has more than Q Series SSDs. For example, they have PX Series SSD
for Enterprise users and XG5 Series as Client SSDs. So you may need another SSD
erasing tool for all Toshiba Series SSDs. What’s more, Storage Utilities is reported
cannot be selected (grayed out) when proceeding erasing method in Secure Erase menu
sometimes. Besides, Storage Utilities supports only disk formatted with NTFS. That
is to say, you cannot use it on FAT32 formatted disk.
If you’re facing the same issues, why not try this free and easy SSD secure erase
software, AOMEI Partition Assistant
Standard.
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free disk and partition manager that designs
for Windows PC OS. The “SSD Secure Erase Wizard” will walk you through Toshiba SSD
erasing process, and even a computer novice can do a great job. This software also
employs ATA Command Line to wiping all data. What different is it simplifies all
complicated operations in graphical interface. Go on and have a look.

How to Secure Erase Toshiba SSD Step by Step in Windows 7?
To ensure Toshiba SSD is not the boot disk, you need to connect it to a Windows 7
based computer if it contains system files. Download and install AOMEI Partition
Assistant Standard.
Step1. Start this Toshiba SSD erase utility and click on “SSD Secure
Erase Wizard”.
Step2. Select Toshiba SSD to secure erase from given list.

Step3. It may prompt that Toshiba SSD is in frozen state. Don’t
worry. You can do a Hot Swap* to unfreeze it.

Step4. After the hot swap, you’ll get option to erase the disk.
Then, wait for the process finishes.

*Perform a Hot Swap:
Open computer case cover, or back cover or hard shell on laptop.
Find the selected SSD and unplug the power cable off SSD.
Unplug SSD’s SATA cable.
Reconnect the SATA cable to the SATA or IDE port.
Reconnect the power cable to the power port. Close the cover.
Tips:
Wiping operation will erase all data on selected hard disk or partition. Please perform a cloud backup or local backup in advance.
To erase Toshiba SSD with Windows 10 or Windows 8 installed, you can
uninstall the SSD and connect it to a Windows 7 computer and then do same
operations. This also applies to Toshiba SSD on laptop.
AOMEI Partition Assistant can be used as Toshiba OCZ SSD secure erase tool as
well.
Do not erase your Toshiba SSD too frequently because normal file deletion can
be realized by SSD TRIM.
To wipe data on Toshiba HDD, you can try “Wipe
Hard Drive” feature of this software.
Conclusion
It is quite easy to do Toshiba SSD secure erase as long as you find the right
utility. Apart from erasing Toshiba SSD, AOMEI Partition Assistant can maintain your
SSD pretty well. For instance, you can repartition your Toshiba SSD or migrate OS
drive only to SSD so that you can use SSD for
OS and HDD for storage.