I'm just wondering from a security stand point if a deleted file on an SSD with trim enabled can be recovered? I've did some research and it would seem it is impossible unless for some reason trim wasn't called on the deleted file blocks.
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Have you read the questions tagged with `trim`? and the questions in the "Related" section to the right on this page? – schroeder Jan 02 '23 at 21:19
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If you're looking for a guarantee either that it can or that it can't, you're very likely to be disappointed. Even if you limit your question to a specific model. How quickly the data is actually erased probably depends on how large it is and what else shares the same erase sector. – Ben Voigt Jan 02 '23 at 22:42
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The file (movie) was around 10 mb. So it wasn't too big. – Curt Rand Jan 02 '23 at 23:59
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Deleting data with trim does not securely delete the data.
The trim command tells the drive's controller that certain logical sectors of the drive are not being used and that their data MAY be treated as erasable to aid performance.
In normal operation, these sectors may be wiped by a future write operation (or rather, wear-leveling in preparation for future writes). But this is not guaranteed to happen immediately or within a given time frame. With access to the physical drive you may be able to obtain the data from the flash chips before they are erased.
Even overwriting the data does not securely delete it on an SSD, because of wear-leveling and overprovision. You can only securely delete data on an SSD if you use a secure wipe, a function that needs to be supported by the drive and which would erase everything.
thomasrutter
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