Drive Genius 3 “ Shred” feature

Permanently erase files with Drive Genius's Shred Feature

A easily overlooked feature of Drive Genius 3 is the Shred feature. Yes, your Mac OSX has a secure erase feature built-in, but when you need to shred a single document or image this is faster and safer. Using the Shred feature you can zero out an entire drive or volume or just individual folders and files. Here is an excellent example how easy it is, a few months back I was updating my Passport information for renewal and had to scan my existing passport and email it out. After the scan was finished, I wanted to make sure to delete the scanned passport photo but I didn’t want to zero out my free space on my drive because of time constraints. Since Drive Genius 3 was installed all I had to do was right click on the image file and select from the menu below and it shredded the one single file only. This is a great way to securely erase files on the fly when the scenario calls for it. Keep in mind that shredded files are not recoverable in almost all cases. Just be careful which files you are shredding beforehand, as there is no going back if you make a mistake.

Drive Genius 3’s Shred function is used for securely erasing the contents of a volume or the whole drive. There are many reasons to perform a shredding operation instead of simply dragging the files into the trash. For example:
To avoid identity theft and protect your credit.
Stop intellectual property theft.
Permanently get rid of your data files so no one can recover them.
Permanently delete any software that you are not going to be using on your new machine since software licenses usually only apply to one computer.
Most Government/large corporations require the drives to be securely erased before disposing or transferring to other users
The only secure way to erase your drive is by overwriting the previous data patterns. Drive Genius 3 has been written to conform to the United States Department of Defense.

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Mike Fiato

Technical Support at Prosoft Engineering Inc.

I have been working for Prosoft Engineering for 4 years by supporting our Mac & PC users with hard drive utilities and data recovery applications. My focus is continually updating our award-wining products with new versions, by listening to our customers and researching market conditions. I am seasoned high tech professional with 10 plus years of experience in hardware and software as a Technical Support Manager, Field Application Engineer and Product Manager. Specializing in Mac & PC workstation hardware/software support, performance computing, benchmarking, technical marketing and product sales training. I have attended numerous trade shows, provided technical onsite training , supported Tier 1 & 2 OEM's and have submitted performance workstations to SPEC.org for benchmarking verification results. My hands on approach has kept my experience diverse and relevant to the markets I support directly over the years. In addition to my experience listed I genuinely have a special interest in technical trends, advances in mass storage, data recovery, graphics cards and mobile computing. When I have time and can schedule it, I like to go low tech and visit the outdoors, lakes, rivers and oceans to fish for variety of species. I also enjoy traveling, remodeling my house, wood working and online FPS games. Having multiple hobbies is great way to disconnect from work and the everyday schedule to unwind and relax.

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