Secure Erase is a firmware erasure method built into some drives. When available, a command is sent to the firmware of the drive, and the firmware quickly overwrites every sector with a 1 or 0. Since it is an internal process, it is a very quick process.
Our software has the ability to determine if the drive can do Secure Erase, and will attempt to use that command to wipe the drive more efficiently. If a 3 pass pattern is selected, for example, it will attempt to use Secure Erase during one of the passes. The software generates logs indicate whether a Secure Erase pass has been completed. However, if Secure Erase is not supported, our software does the process manually.
Depending on the wipe pattern chosen, the wiping software will overwrite each sector of the drive with the appropriate data.