DDR4 & DDR5 payouts are up — see this week’s index →

NIST 800-88 · verifiable certificates

Your data is the part we take most seriously.

Every SSD and laptop we buy is erased to the NIST 800-88 Purge standard, verified by read-back, and documented with a serialized certificate emailed to you free — and anyone can confirm that certificate against our records at a public link. RAM needs no wiping; it loses its contents the moment the power is cut.

What actually happens to your drive

  1. Serialized intake. The serial is logged and photographed before anything else touches the device.
  2. NIST 800-88 Purge. The drive's own sanitize mechanism — nvme sanitize/nvme format for NVMe, ATA Secure Erase for SATA, sg_sanitize for SAS. Not a format. Not a delete. The controller-level erase that reaches over-provisioned space.
  3. Verification. A read-back pass confirms the erase; anything that fails verification is physically destroyed instead.
  4. Certificate. One per device: serial, method, tool, date, verifier — emailed to you and verifiable by anyone at its public link.

The certificate

Each certificate carries a public verification URL of the form https://www.sellusedram.com/cert/{id} — hand it to an auditor, an employer, or a compliance officer and they can confirm it against our records without asking you anything. Business lots get the full serialized package: intake manifest through certificate delivery.

Why RAM doesn't need wiping (and what does)

DRAM is volatile — it loses its contents within moments of power-off, so there is nothing on your RAM to wipe by the time it's in a box. Storage is the opposite: SSDs and laptop drives keep data until properly sanitized, and "deleted" or "formatted" is not sanitized. That's why storage gets the full treatment above, always.

Wipe it yourself first — genuinely encouraged

Belt and suspenders is the right instinct. Our guide shows the exact commands per interface: How to wipe an SSD before selling it. We'll still re-wipe and certify regardless — your certificate shouldn't depend on your own homework.

Stolen-equipment controls

Laptop serials are collected at quote time and checked at intake; duplicate serials across orders raise automatic flags; first-time sellers over $500 get a short payment hold; every acceptance includes a stolen-property attestation; serials are retained and law-enforcement requests are honored. Details in the FAQ.

Sell with the certificate included