Per NIST Special Publication 800-88 Rev. 1 (p. 7): > For storage devices containing magnetic media, a single overwrite pass with a fixed pattern such as binar

Per NIST Special Publication 800-88 Rev. 1 (p. 7): > For storage devices containing magnetic media, a single overwrite pass with a fixed pattern such as binary zeros typically hinders recovery of data even if state of the art laboratory techniques are applied to attempt to retrieve the data. * https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-88/rev-1/final https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-88/rev-1/fi... If you're really paranoid use degaussing or physical destruction. If you can, use the SATA/SCSI "secure erase" command. Which definitely needs to be done for non-magnetic media (e.g., SSDs). I'm sure there are some places where regulations dictate certain actions.