Secure Erase Benefits? (Samsung Magician)

[Stansfield]

Upfront, I believe the drive is currently fine and healthy, but there were a large number of communication errors early on due to a faulty or bad SATA cable which, even with the cable replaced and the errors no longer apparently occuring, has me kinda edgy. The errors remain 'logged' within the SMART values, and I'm wondering if a secure erase via SM would default those values, or otherwise provide some other benefit.

I purchased a Samsung 850 Evo 500GB SSD in early January, with the plan to use it as a separate 'Games' drive; when I initially set it up, I ran into a large number of system freezes that required hard shut downs, and I *may* have gotten a blue screen once. With the assistance of folks here, I figured out I was having issues with my SATA cable, leading to a large number of communication errors per SMART values (I think the full number may actually have been at over a thousand). HD Sentinel Pro was very useful in both diagnosing this and - when I'd replaced the cable with one that worked - confirming via a surface test that all was well again. The only issue remaining was that those errors remained in place.

I've actually gone through the full bother since then of updating my BIOS to it's most current, wiping out Windows 10 Home 64-bit (which I was having problems with following a clean re-install) and returning via clean re-install to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. And yet, I'm still nagged by the fact that if I bother to look, the SMART data will still reflect those communication errors (and I think most would agree that when the numbers have reached and passed 1000, it's ... unsightly).

Am I worrying over nothing, and just letting this one item get under my skin without reason? Or is there a benefit to running a secure erase - via Samsung Magician or Parted Magic? I've never used either to do a secure erase, and so the steps would be totally new to me, but if there's a benefit to doing one in this case, I will research and prep until I do it as flawlessly as I can (while screaming mercilessly as Samsung Support via chat, I suspect).

Full System Specs - homebuilt

OS:
♦ Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (10 was nothing but a number, 😛 )
CPU:
♦ i5-3570k @ 3.40 GHz (3.8 Turbo)
CPU Fan
♦ COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+
Motherboard
♦ ASUS Maximus V EXTREME Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
RAM
♦ Dominator Platinum Series — 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 DRAM 1600MHz C9 Memory Kit
PSU
♦ COOLER MASTER RS-A50-SPHA-D3 Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W Intel ATX 12V V2.3 & SSI EPS 12V V2.92
Graphics Card
♦ MSI GeForce GTX 1070 DirectX 12 GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ATX Video Card w/ most current driver
Primary Drive
♦ SAMSUNG 850 PRO 2.5" 256GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Secondary Drive
♦ (Games (E)) - SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD
Tertiary Drive
♦ (in two Volumes (F & G)): Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD

Peripherals / Other

Spoiler

Case – COOLER MASTER COSMOS II RC-1200-KKN1 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Monitor – Dell UltraSharp U2410 24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor with PremierColor
Mouse – Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum RGB Tunable Gaming Mouse
Keyboard – Corsair K95 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard w/ Cherry MX RGB Red switches

 

[t53186]

The secure erase will only clear data write to the drive. The smart values will remain, as they should, its the only indicator of health from birth to death, so to speak

 

[USAFRet]

I had a similar issue.
2 different SSD's, PC running almost 24/7. ~3 years.

1 SSD had maybe 150 power on cycles. As expected.
The other, installed at the same time, had 2-3 thousand. Strictly due to a bad cable. It was connecting and disconnecting several times per day.

That drive is still running just fine, now a further 3 years later.
Your drive is almost certainly fine.

 

[Stansfield]

The secure erase will only clear data write to the drive. The smart values will remain, as they should, its the only indicator of health from birth to death, so to speak

well, Nuts! But at the same time, very good to know, 😀 It's just irritating to feel my confidence in a drive get shaken by a bad SATA connection, even if that's really saying something more about me than anything. Thanks, t53186! You have a good one.

 

[Stansfield]

I had a similar issue.
2 different SSD's, PC running almost 24/7. ~3 years.

1 SSD had maybe 150 power on cycles. A2 expected.
The other, installed at the same time, had 2-3 thousand. Strictly due to a bad cable. It was connecting and disconnecting several times per day.

That drive is still running just fine, now a further 3 years later.
Your drive is almost certainly fine.

Thanks, USAFRet, that does make me feel better. Not being anywhere near as knowledgeable as I'd like to be in this area (tech), I constantly give myself over to magical thinking. I should probably stock up on salt around my desk, but the keyboard would never forgive me.