Member Avatar for holye459

I am going to sell my old Mac Mini and i need to erase all the data stored on the drive. I heard that a factory reset is not secure enough. The data recovery software can still access the data on the drive. Is worth to a buy third-party app to wipe the drive?

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The thread already has the basics from , (Apple’s erase guide), (how‑to writeups), (dd) and (DBAN). The important missing pieces are (a) whether the Mac has an HDD or an SSD and (b) how modern Macs use encryption and hardware sanitization — those facts change what “secure wipe” actually means.

Short, practical summary and checklist

  • Identify the Mac model and storage type (HDD vs SSD) and whether it has a T2 chip or Apple silicon. Macs with T2/Apple silicon have hardware‑backed encryption and an Erase Assistant / “Erase All Content and Settings” flow that is designed for trade‑in/sale. (support.apple.com)
  • On SSDs (including internal flash on modern Mac Minis) Disk Utility does not offer multi‑pass secure‑erase; Apple and experts recommend strong encryption (FileVault/APFS) or the chip’s built‑in crypto erase instead of multiple overwrites. (support.apple.com)
  • On spinning HDDs, overwriting (Disk Utility’s security options or diskutil secureErase) still works; note Apple’s manpages warn that these commands aren’t reliable on modern flash media. Example (HDD only): 
sudo diskutil secureErase 0 /dev/diskN

This targets a whole disk and must be used with care. ()

Why DBAN / dd aren’t always the right answer

  • DBAN and dd are useful for old mechanical drives, but DBAN explicitly does not support SSD sanitization and dd’s overwrites are inefficient and can be ineffective on flash due to wear‑leveling and over‑provisioning. For enterprise or audit needs, certified erasure tools (Blancco and similar) or a vendor “sanitize” command are appropriate; for most consumer sales the Apple erase flows + encryption are sufficient. (dban.org)

Final notes (risk levels)

  • For ordinary resale: enable FileVault (if not already), sign out of iCloud/Find My/Activation Lock, use Erase Assistant or Recovery Disk Utility and reinstall macOS. (support.apple.com)
  • For extremely sensitive data: follow NIST sanitization categories (clear/purge/destroy) and consider certified erasure or physical destruction. (csrc.nist.gov)

This puts the advice from , , and into a model‑aware workflow: HDD = overwrite tools OK; SSD = prefer encryption/crypto‑erase or certified methods.

Recommended Answers

All 8 Replies

Member Avatar for rproffitt

. Why do you say that? At the Apple link I gave it wrote "If you want to securely erase the drive, click Security Options. Select an erase method, then click OK"

Did Apple lie?

Member Avatar for holye459

thank u. I will sort it out and see whether the data is accessible or not.

Edited by happygeek because: spammy quoted links removed
Member Avatar for rubberman

There is a tool called dd that is on every Linux distribution. Boot from a Linux live CD/DVD and do this (assuming that the Apple drive is /dev/sda): dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M
When it is done, the drive will be completely zeroed out. If you want, you can also specify if=/dev/random and wipe multiple times for more secure results.

Member Avatar for holye459

There is a tool called dd that is on every Linux distribution. Boot from a Linux live CD/DVD and do this (assuming that the Apple drive is /dev/sda): dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

this would be too hard for me. i have no clue about linux. thanks anyway.

Edited by happygeek because: deleted quoted references to spam link
Member Avatar for rubberman

Ever use the command line console window on OSX? That is basically the same thing. :-)

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

Darin's Boot n Nuke is an ISO image you can DL and burn to a bootable media (usb/CD/etc...)

I will securely erase the entire disk without relying on the manufacturer.

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