@Logical Filling an SSD with zeros only affects the logical address space visible to your OS—it doesn’t force the controller to erase every physical block. The old data remains in unmapped or retired areas until (or unless) the controller decides to erase it later, potentially allowing recovery with specialized tools. Some SSDs might even optimize by not physically writing zeros if they detect a full block of them, simply marking the space as erased without touching the hardware.
See what I’m still not getting though, is how there can still be unmapped or retired areas, if the drive has been filled with (meaningless) data? Let’s say it isn’t all zeros, but random data instead. Are there more physical blocks than is represented logically by the adress space exposed to the OS?
@Logical Filling an SSD with zeros only affects the logical address space visible to your OS—it doesn’t force the controller to erase every physical block. The old data remains in unmapped or retired areas until (or unless) the controller decides to erase it later, potentially allowing recovery with specialized tools. Some SSDs might even optimize by not physically writing zeros if they detect a full block of them, simply marking the space as erased without touching the hardware.
See what I’m still not getting though, is how there can still be unmapped or retired areas, if the drive has been filled with (meaningless) data? Let’s say it isn’t all zeros, but random data instead. Are there more physical blocks than is represented logically by the adress space exposed to the OS?