Re: Suggestion for rm(1)

[Bob Proulx]

Andreas Schwab wrote:
> Incidentally, due to the increasing use of SSD and their tendency not to
> reuse recently used blocks it may become again easier in future to
> recover data.

That is an interesting observation.  But it really depends upon the
firmware used on the device.  Not all SSDs operate the same and there
are wide variations in implementation and resulting performance.

Some vendors improve performance by aggressively making freed space
available for rewrite.  Support from the trim[1] command is critical
for this function.  (In short, you want it.)  Also accessing any deleted
blocks may require low level device specific diagnose instructions.
So it is also possible that widespread use of SSDs in the future may
make it increasingly more difficult to recover deleted files.

Bob

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM