VMware Developers (FOR ALL VMware products),

A shift is requisite upon the entirety of the Information Technology field to stop thinking about “zeroing things out” (say in precedence to compressing a VMDK file) and to start thinking about “oneing things out”. I thus request a change in all VMware products in this regard.

Huh? But why? Zeroes have worked fine forever!

As the overarching posture of the Information Technology industry changes from mechanical data storage to SSD based data storage we see an issue. SSDs will last much longer if they are “oned out” then if they are “zeroed out”. Yet, from a functional point of view it really makes no difference to a piece of software like VMware (ESXi, Fusion, Workstation, etc…) if it deletes unused blocks based on all ones or all zeroes, but to SSD owners it makes a HUGE difference as it cuts the life of SSDs to zero them instead of one them out.

Very respectfully submitted,

Stuart Blake Tener, N3GWG

Computer Scientist