Blancco and WipeDrive — What Are They And How Do They Work?

Blancco and WipeDrive — What Are They And How Do They Work?

By Khadijah Patawari

January 26, 2022


It's vital to ensure your data is safe after retiring your devices. To help with this, there are software products that can help you get rid of data. These are referred to as data erasure tools. Two highly-rated industry-renowned tools are Blancco and WipeDrive. These programs are excellent choices for any company that needs to erase data from their hard drives or other devices before disposing of it. Read on to know more about them.

office computer laptop station

You can conduct wide-scale data sanitization using data erasure tools like Blancco and WipeDrive. Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels.

What is Blancco?

Blancco is a software application that allows users to erase data from storage devices. It was invented in 1997 by a Finish company to wipe data from a storage device, which could be a hard drive, floppy disk, USB drive, or any other type of storage media. It can also delete files and folders on the hard drive or mobile phone and tablet data.

Blancco is an easy-to-use tool that makes erasing data easy. The application has a simple interface that makes it easy to use, and the wide range of features make it an ideal data erasure solution for most companies and businesses. You can use this tool in both personal and professional environments.

What is WipeDrive?

WipeDrive started in 1998 as WhiteCanyon Software based in Utah. Their software uses the same wiping technology used by the Department of Defense with additional advanced options for network and remote wiping as well as advanced reporting.

The tool allows companies and government entities to permanently and securely erase data from hard drives, removable media, and even mobile devices. The WipeDrive solution provides a cost-effective, secure, and socially responsible way of recycling and retiring up to 20 drives of computer storage at a time, which makes for efficient time management.


Both software includes features that allow you to wipe an entire hard drive or part of it. This can be useful in situations where you are disposing of a computer with old files on it and want to avoid leaving unneeded information.

person inserting dongle usb into laptop

Data erasure software uses secure and simple methods i.e. cloud and USB to permanently wipe out various types of stored data. Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

How Does Blancco Work?

Blancco works by erasing the hard drive or storage media with a special algorithm that is not found in other tools. This algorithm uses specific data patterns to overwrite the entire disk and make it unreadable, thus rendering all information on them inaccessible. 

The application is quite simple to install and use. You simply need to download the application to your computer, install it and run the program. It will then scan the hard drive or device you are using and erase all of its data if there's anything on there that shouldn't be – viruses, personal information, etc. The app can also be used for other purposes, such as deleting temporary internet files or clearing cache memory from browsers to free up space on your device.

To date, Blancco holds over 30 patent and patent-pending ideas. Here is a summary of two of its latest:

Patent US20190095126A1 — 

The ‘Erasure and Diagnostic Method and System’ patent centers around erasure and diagnostics of mobile devices and focuses specifically on the Blancco Mobile Workflows solution—a feature of the Blancco Mobile Diagnostics & Erasure product. The erasure procedure involved as part of this process may comprise a verification procedure to verify that all data has been successfully removed from the device. The diagnostic procedure may comprise any suitable diagnostic procedure, including a particular function’s current level of performance.

Patent 9286231 — 

The ‘SSD Erasure Method‘ patent is the unique, secure and verifiable method by which the Blancco Drive Eraser erases data from solid state drives. This new patent augments patents they've already been granted in the EU and Finland and provides organizations with a secure method to handle end-of-life storage devices—regardless of underlying technology—in a cost-effective, secure, and eco-friendly manner.

How Does WipeDrive Work?

Certified by the Common Criteria Standard, WipeDrive is a wiping software that is certified to meet the EAL 2+ criteria, meeting most major national and international certifications and standards. With two patents on hand, WipeDrive ensures its tools pursue the highest standards of intellectual property protection in the data erasure industry.

With WipeDrive one block of WipeDrive licenses gives you the flexibility to wipe various devices, RAID configurations, and other storage media. You could either leave your licenses in the cloud or use the WipeDrive Dongle which allows you to manage your licenses according to your business needs including wiping without an internet connection.

Here are summaries of the patents:

WhiteCanyon Patent 9665743 —

The ‘Selective Storage Device Wiping System and Method’ patent provides protection on the methodology for the activation of the wipe process from a remote server or other sites when a computer is reported lost or stolen. The wipe technique selectively wipes all data files and free space and then wipes the entire storage device. This causes any personal data files, photos, and videos to be wiped first. Once the wiping process starts, it will continue until complete. The process starts or continues whenever the computer is booted. Only when all personal and sensitive data is wiped, will the system then change the encryption key (if applicable) and begin wiping the entire storage device.

Whitecanyon Patent 9396359 —

The ‘System and Method For Encrypted Disk Drive Sanitizing‘ patent provides protection on the methodology for first changing the encryption key on a self-encrypting disk drive followed by a complete disk wipe. The patent provides that either process can be separately performed, and they can be performed in any order. In fact, one embodiment of the invention resets the symmetric key, wipes the disk a predetermined number of times with different predetermined data patterns, and then resets the key a second time. This assures that there is absolutely no way to recover the original key or to read the original plain text data, even if some of its encrypted values remain on unallocated tracks after wiping. A user can be assured that in milliseconds after starting the wiping process, the entire disk is rendered unreadable and unrecoverable.

In Conclusion — SPW Partnership

Here at SPW, we pride ourselves on working with the best of the best in the ITAD industry. Both data erasure tools have overlaps in how they function but each has its own unique strengths that could specifically benefit your business.

By partnering with both Blancco and WipeDrive we are able to solve our clients' diverse needs for permanent data destruction solutions. Speak to one of our representatives today to learn more about using a recognized data erasure software for your company's next ITAD endeavor.


SPW is Asia's go-to solutions provider for data destruction, data erasure, IT asset remarketing, and environmentally-responsible IT asset disposals. Contact us and learn how you can incorporate an ITAD strategy into your business today. 

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