Storage Effect

The difference between specifications and reality

Tom’s Hardware compared the power draw of SSDs and 7200 rpm disk drives in notebooks under real-world usage scenarios.  The SSD-based notebooks had shorter battery life! 

How can this be, given that the idle and active power ratings of both devices are comparable?

Disk drives almost always run at or close to idle power consumption rates.  SSDs do not.  Read the Tom’s Hardware post for a detailed explanation.

This throws another bucket of the cold water of Reality on notebook SSD hype. 

The lesson here is to thoroughly evaluate new technologies like SSD in your environment before jumping off the deep end.  SSD is no doubt exciting; it just needs a little time to mature.

Can anyone confirm that their SSD laptop has less battery life than their drived version?

Vista needs your help to make it truly valuable to your customers 

Bill Gates made a case last month in Tokyo that Vista is “selling rapidly”, 140 million units and counting.  He compared Vista adoption favorably with XP at this point in its launch in 2003. 

Is Vista a success?

Kevin McLaughlin at ChannelWeb says the truth for solution providers is “somewhere between the hope and hysteria.” 

A friend of mine who is head of marketing for a national solution provider told me that he’s still waiting for Microsoft to spell out for his customers good reasons to switch from XP.  Vista’s a fine product, but his customers aren’t taking the time and risk to change over.

Security’s not it, because they’ve built security around their XP solutions that work just fine. 

Maybe storage can help my friend and others.  Vista with the right storage can do things XP can’t.  Automated backup, entertainment ‘command central’, etc.  With today big and cheap drives, solution providers can throw a terabyte into their desktops.  Even notebooks can be high capacity now.

It’s in your hands.  Translate Vista into new value for your customers, and it will deliver value for you.

Cool, but encryption is a kindler and gentler way to retire disk drives

Blocks and Files highlighted this very physical solution to a data management problem: how to be sure sensitive data on retired disk drives never again sees the light of day.  It’s a do-it-yourself version of industrial disk crushers.

Verity’s quite excited about the Hard Drive Destroyer, and I know it fills a desperate need.  But it’s not very resource-efficient nor environmentally friendly.  That’s a perfectly good drive!  Can’t someone else use it? 

The renewable alternative: self-encrypting hard drives like the Momentus FDE and BlackArmor.  When it’s time to retire, throw away the AES-grade encryption key, and Poof! - what was once written will never be seen again.  Certifiably so. 

Momentus FDE is a notebook drive. The first enterprise FDE drive will be the Seagate Cheetah 15K .  Stay tuned.

Who’s destroying drives out there?  Anyone willing to admit they’re ignoring this problem and reusing drives?  

Storage is rising in importance for solutions, according to attendees

I’m at the Intel Channel Conference today in Minneapolis.  Looks like 100+ solution providers here.  I’ve been having lots of real-world, thought-provoking conversations. 

Takeaways

• I’m not overstating the sea change in storage requirements for homes and businesses.  For these guys, storage is now on par with processors, networking and software in enabling solutions.
• Data recovery is a growing need.  Solution providers prefer a local option to avoid the “send away and pray” effect.
• SSD is a popular topic, but lots of head nodding when I suggest that the first real killer app will be enterprise, not laptops.
• Notebook augmentation is a growing business for solution providers: buy off the shelf, customize with storage, software, services. 

High performance laptops are in

By the way, 7200 rpm drives look to rapidly ramp in notebooks this year as users look for desktop performance.  Consider getting in ahead of the crowd.  The drives are readily available.

Who’s using 7200 rpm today?  Are your customers asking for it?

Seagate’s drive is first to Dell’s shelves

In the world of press announcements, Seagate can be a tortoise at times.  And while flashy “first” press releases can garner attention for other disk drive vendors, it’s when the drives are in the hands of customers that really matters.

According to Engadget, Seagate has crossed the finish line first with 320GB 7200 rpm notebook drives from Dell.  The Momentus 7200.3 is a rockin’ drive, too - check it out.

Here’s a slow-motion video of the Momentus 7200 zero-G sensor in action.

Who’s using 7200 rpm in their notebook?  Is it worth the extra $46?

Hardware-based encryption is an important weapon in the defense of data at rest

If the National Security Agency says Seagate’s Momentus FDE self-encrypting hard drive is secure, I don’t need any more convincing. 

It really is a cool drive, with full AES encryption of all data within the drive, all without any slow-down in performance. 

And it can’t be hacked the way software-based PC data encryption schemes can. Just don’t lose your password!  That’s why key management is such an essential part of notebooks using of these drives.

Bonus benefit: you can instantly and thoroughly erase a drive for retiring or repurposing by simply deleting the password.  One-click instant erase!  Nice.

Forbes’ thoughts on the NSA action 

SSDs in notebooks show little to no benefit vs. disk drives

Bill O’Brien at Computerworld asked the same question I did in February.  He conducted some pretty comprehensive head-to-head testing between a pair of SSDs and Seagate’s Momentus and Barracuda disk drives. 

The results surprised him:

So forgive me for being contrarian, but while I recognize the exotic and alluring nature of solid state disks as a technology — and have certainly fallen victim to their potential “wow factor” on occasion — after spending 12 days with a pair of them and a pair of mechanical drives, I’m, convinced that SSDs have yet to live up to their true potential.

I disagree that his conclusions are contrarian - although they would have been not long ago.  SSD for notebooks has peaked on the hype curve and is accelerating its slide into disillusionment. 

Someday flash storage will rock in notebook PCs.  But not today, not for a $1000+ premium, not as a standalone replacement for a disk drive. 

Hybrid drives that combine the two technologies…that’s a story for another day.

Who’s using SSDs in their notebook today?  Are you satisfied?

A factual comparison of encryption methods

Here’s a thorough article on disk drive-based encryption, with comparisons to software-based encryption.  Key takeaway: if you encrypt within the disk drive, there are no external access points for an intruder to exploit. 

What’s the real-world risk of someone going to such lengths?  Someone could break down my locked door at my house as well. 

The “no-worries” benefit 

A major commercial value of hacker-proof encryption on a business PC is the “no-worries” benefit.  If a disk-encrypted notebook with customer records on board is lost or stolen, there is no credible risk of the data ever being retrieved.  Whether or not the notebook is found, the business is safe from becoming a media poster child for lax security of their customers’ personal information.

Seagate’s take on this topic is here.

Tenfold notebook failure rates for SSDs vs. disk drives 

Engadget reports a 10X failure rate for SSDs in notebook PCs compared to hard drives.   Can you say “early adopter”? SSDs are an exciting future, but a future still for mainstream markets.

Reliability is relative, especially in terms of the technology being replaced.  The same goes for pricing - see my Flash tags posts.

Any flash early adopters out there?  What’s your experience with returns or failures, either personally or through solutions you’ve sold to someone?

Update: Yet another issue with flash as a near-term disk drive replacement: potential patent infringement issues. 

Full Disk Encryption is the elegant solution to elaborately hacked passwords

Engadget has recently raised the alarm over gaps in software-based encryption security.  First, they reported that keys can be recovered from DRAM with a complex but possible process.  Next, they pointed out that thumb drives could be used in a simpler variation of the technique.

Good news:  you can close this gap with a hard drive with Full Disc Encryption (FDE), like the Momentus 5400 FDE.

• The cryptographic key never leaves the hard drive
• It’s stored on an ASIC in the hard drive with no probe points
• Any attempt to remove the ASIC from the drive package locks the drive and cuts power to the chip, erasing its memory

For those serious about security, stop messing with bandaids and lock it down tight. Here’s a more detailed description of this.

 I’ve posted several times on data security and encryption issues.