is 1 pass pseudorandom data enough?

[rumpel]

hi,
is erasing with one time with pseudorandom data enough? ive seen many people say yes, noone can recover the files then anymore and some others say no, things can be recovered, no matter how many passes

whats true?

 

[GregM]

One pass is sufficient. Multiple overwrites provided better erasure on pre-2001 hard drives and floppy disks/diskettes. Tests by many organizations now conclude that multiple passes on modern drives amount to overkill. No one boasts of the ability to retrieve single-pass erased data.

 

[rumpel]

okay, thank you