[SOLVED] "clean all" in diskpart, no indicator?

coldfunk

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Oct 18, 2012
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Hello, (not sure I'm in the right section), I'm reinstalling windows on a laptop I'll be putting up for sale. I'm attempting to wipe the SSD via diskpart like I did a few years ago when I first got the laptop, but this time I'm doing a "clean all" instead of a simple "clean". I've selected the disk in question and typed "clean all", but I'm not sure it's doing anything, that is to say there isn't a progress indicator (i.e. 5% complete), just the blinking underscore below. Is it supposed to display this at all or will it simply say "complete" at some point? If it's doing it's thing I don't want to interrupt it. It's a 500gig SSD, so I'm not sure how long it will take. I've read elsewhere it can take up to an hour per 320gb, but I'm assuming that's for an HDD. Any info on this would be appreciated.
 

coldfunk

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Oct 18, 2012
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Once again, USAFRet saves the day :giggle:. Thanks! I shall wait then.

Edit: the message indeed popped up a couple minutes later. Took about 10 minutes for this drive, in case it wants to be known.
 
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coldfunk

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Oct 18, 2012
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clean all writes zeroes to all sectors on the disk.
You should not use this option on SSD. This exhausts SSD write cycles.

That was the intention, since I'm selling it and had personal stuff on it so I just wanted to be safe. That said, the SSD hasn't had much use in the first place, a small handful of games installed for some light gaming now and then. Mostly it's been for browsing and watching movies off USB drives, writing, so the SSD hasn't had much going in or our of it. I doubt doing this once will have much of an effect on it's lifespan. How many cycles does this process utilize?
 
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