I have a few Samsung SSDs, and I always have trouble remembering the process of secure erasing them, as Samsung Magician software is terrible.

Here are my notes for overcoming Samsung Magician’s gotchas in the process of secure erasing a Samsung SSD.

You need a Windows or MacOS system with a Samsung SSD attached

This requirement drives me crazy, as Samsung Magician is creating a bootable USB disk, so it shouldn’t care what’s on your current system, but it does. And Samsung Magician only exists for Windows, MacOS, and Android, so if you’re on Linux, you can’t use it.