Are "moved" files recoverable on an SSD drive?

[Henry Krinkle]

I regularly move files from one SSD hard drive to another.

By "move" I mean: holding down Command, then dragging the file to the new hard drive.

For instance, moving 'File Z' from 'Hard Drive A' to 'Hard Drive B' results in there being no visible copy of 'File Z' on 'Hard Drive A' any longer.

My question is:

When moving a file as such, is there a copy left behind on the former SSD hard drive it was on that could in any way be recovered?

 

[Cheryl]

Only if you have a back up copy on a TM drive (or similar back up disk)

 

[Henry Krinkle]

Thank you for your reply, Cheryl.

I had thought maybe there was some trace of it left that was recoverable (similar to if I had deleted it).

 

[Cheryl]

It is possible to have a trace of the file. You would need a data rescue tool/app to find it, if it is still there.

Remember that your drive writes over spots where previous files were sitting.

 

[Henry Krinkle]

I know the regular hard drives will overwrite data, I just wasn't sure about solid state drives.

I had heard that they operate differently.

For instance, I'd heard that you can't do secure deletion on SSDs like you can on regular hard drives.