Question I have a m.2 drive that is my third SSD and I want to wipe all the data on it so I can clone my c drive to it.

[True Local]

I have a m.2 drive that I want to completely wipe so I can clone my c drive to it. What is the easiest way to wipe a secondary m.2 that does not house your OS

 

[Darkbreeze]

Just use disk management in Windows. And actually, you can just use Macrium reflect to both clear the drive and to clone to the drive. Plenty of Macrium tutotials out there for whatever you want to do using Macrium, and since it's free, it's kind of hard to beat.

If you prefer to use a true partition manager, then Paragon partition manager community edition is a good choice that is easy to use.

What are the details of the drive the OS is currently on? Size, type, etc?

 

[geofelt]

When you clone a drive, the target gets wiped and becomes identical to the source with perhaps added free space if the target is larger.
No special action will be needed.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, that's kind of true, but there are situations where it's not entirely true.

 

[USAFRet]

What is the make/model/size of all drives involved here?

 

[MWink64]

Ideally, you want to use something that will secure erase/sanitize/TRIM the drive before you clone it. If you just delete the partitions, the drive's controller might not realize the existing data is no longer needed. Some manufacturers (Samsung, Crucial, WD/SanDisk, etc.) provide utilities with this feature. There are also other ways to do it.

If you're going to clone another drive to it, you can use Macrium Reflect (a free version is available). I'm fairly sure it has an option to TRIM the target drive as part of the cloning process.

 

[CountMike]

Wiping is only a security measure, once you clone or restore to another drive all data is either erased or written over, anything that was just marked as deleted will be taken care off by trim and garbage collection very soon after completing transfer. MR for instance will zero all used and unused cells. when clone or restore is started.

 

[MWink64]

Wiping is only a security measure, once you clone or restore to another drive all data is either erased or written over, anything that was just marked as deleted will be taken care off by trim and garbage collection very soon after completing transfer. MR for instance will zero all used and unused cells. when clone or restore is started.

Wiping an SSD with a secure erase/sanitize/TRIM command is not just a security measure. It allows the controller to proactively clear the NAND cells, returning them to optimal condition. If you were to simply overwrite a drive, without first performing one of these commands, the controller will be doing a ton of garbage collection (increasing write amplification), trying to preserve the not yet overwritten data. It won't know that the data it's working to preserve is mere moments away from being stale. Think of it like delivering a large shipment of furniture to a home and having to shuffle around existing furniture to make room, before being told that each old piece can be taken out to the dumpster. With secure erase/sanitize/TRIM you're told that all the old furniture can go, before you even start. In that case, you can either clear out all the old furniture and then bring in the new stuff or take out the old stuff as you need room for each new piece. Either way, you're not shuffling old furniture around inside the house. Does that make sense?

You're right that the old data will eventually be taken care of anyway but, by that point, it will have put a little bit of extra wear on the drive and possibly have slowed down the cloning process. I admit, it's not likely to make a meaningful difference in the life of the drive but why stress it unnecessarily. Since Macrium Reflect has the ability to TRIM the drive before cloning, all were talking about is making sure that box is checked.

 

[CountMike]

Only "problem" could be with a bit slower data writing to cells that are marked as deleted but no "zeroed" because it has to be zeroed before new data is written and that affects not only that cell but whole block.
Zeroing" did help with old SSDs but now on newer ones Trim and GC are built into FW and OS, it only takes few seconds of idle state for it to happen. Besides, data will be written first to empty (zero state) blocks and only when there's no more will write to non-zero ones.