Why does deleted data stay on a HDD once written, waiting to be overwritten, as opposed to being removed when requesting deletion?
In: 22
Every method of storing data is essentially just a pile of tiny switches that can either be on or off. We store data by setting the switches a certain way and leaving them there. Removing data on deletion would require going to the pile of switches that represent your data and flipping them in some way that makes it impossible or at least very hard to guess whether each one was on or off before. That takes a lot of time. That’s why instead we just say that something being deleted means it’s safe to use those switches for something else. That also has the added benefit of allowing data restoration in certain cases if you decide you didn’t actually want to delete the thing. Since the switches never got flipped, if you can figure out which switches had your data you can get it back.
Latest Answers