Systems, apparatuses and methods may provide for identifying a target sub-block of NAND strings to be partially or wholly erased in memory and triggering a leakage current condition in one or more target select gate drain-side (SGD) devices associated with the target sub-block. Additionally, the leakage current condition may be inhibited in one or more remaining SGD devices associated with remaining sub-blocks of NAND strings in the memory. In one example, triggering the leakage current condition in the one or more target SGD devices includes setting a gate voltage of the one or more target SGD devices to a value that generates a reverse voltage that exceeds a threshold corresponding to the leakage current condition.