Forget self-destructing SSDs. I want one that backs up and resets itself

Earlier this week, TeamGroup made a big SSD announcement that didn’t involve a new super-fast PCIe 5.0 drive or one that supports cutting-edge encryption standards. It was about an SSD that literally self-destructs, destroying the NAND flash cells at the push of a button. It’s neat if you have something worth hiding beyond conventional deletion methods, but for most of us it’s just a gimmick.

But there is something I wish an SSD could do at the touch of a button: automatically back up everything on it and instantly reset itself.

You see, I’m notoriously lazy when it comes to factory resetting my PC. While some of my colleagues advocate for an annual Windows PC reset, I’ve been known to let it lapse for multiple years at a time. One of the big reasons for that? I’m genuinely scared I’ll delete something important—an old invoice I might need, precious baby photos, a game save that I really will get back to one day. Can’t lose any of it.

Of course, I pay for Backblaze and it keeps all of my important data backed up, and I also have offline stores of family photos, financial records, and archives of all my work. But even with all of that in place, I’m still paranoid that I’ll lose something on a format.

Whenever I start afresh with a Windows reinstall, I usually just buy a new drive, install everything again from scratch, and use my now-replaced SSD as a tertiary game library and time capsule for all that came before. Could I clone the original drive? Sure. But I don’t want to bring all of the other unnecessary crap with me. I want the best of both worlds: a brand-new, fresh Windows install and access to everything I had already. Hence the new drive with the old one used as a backup. But I don’t like buying so many new drives, and the process takes up more time than I’d like.

Further reading: Best Windows backup software 2025: Protect your data!

What if I could just hit a button and it would all happen for me?

In this pie-in-the-sky SSD example, I’m imagining a software tool or trigger where I can hit a button and the drive will automatically back up everything on it at the time to a new partition, then format whatever other space it has on the drive, creating a fresh partition on top. Bonus points if it goes on to install Windows as well. And since this is my pipe dream, I’d love it if Ninite could install all my basic apps for me afterwards.

This would have to work differently if the drive was my main boot drive, of course. Even in my wildest fantasies, I know that an SSD isn’t going to be able to back up, uninstall, then reinstall Windows, all while running Windows. (Could it do it on a reboot? Maybe!)

And maybe it could even have the option to strip out all Windows OS files as part of the backup process, so it only saves my personal data. Then I could eat my cake and have it too: clean drive, renewed performance, fresh install, everything backed up, with lots of reclaimed space on the drive… and it all happens automatically.

I don’t need self-destruction capabilities because I’m not trying to mad-delete my collection of totally legal movie rips or insta-nuke my Tor browser history here. I just want to save a good amount of time and make life more convenient for myself as far as drive management goes. You hear me, Team Group? Get on that and you’ll have my attention.