Later in this first quarter of 2013, Kingston claims they will have a 1 TB flash drive available to the market. This is a vast jump up in capacity for flash media. Known as the DataTraveler HyperX Predator, the drive communicates with USB 3.0 and promises read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 160MB/s. This is incredibly fast compared to historic flash media speeds!
Of course, you will have to pay a pretty penny to get your hands on one of these HyperX Predators. The currently available 512GB model is $1750, so if you want to be one of the first in line to get the 1TB model, get ready to break open your wallet. Of course, if you’re willing to wait a little while these will come down in price. Who knows, by later in the year there will probably be a 2TB available!
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We are thankful to have discerning readers looking at our blog posts, and one of these readers commented on a recent post we did about RAID setups. In this article, we discussed how RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. This is true, though originally the acronym stood for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, as our reader pointed out. More often now the “I” stands for “Independent”.
Either acronym can be misleading depending on the setup. Some RAID setups can use quality (read: not inexpensive) disks, and some RAIDs are actually set up so the multiple disks require each other to function, meaning they are not completely independent. For example, in a RAID 0 setup the data is split between disks, making it not entirely redundant (or independent for that matter). These setups are used more for performance, while setups like RAID 1 have mirror images on each disk, so they are actually redundant but perform slower.
So what does RAID stand for? Redundant Array of Independent Disks? Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks? Well, it doesn’t really matter. Different RAID setups can be fitting for different people’s needs. If you work in an environment where data loss is not an option, it is worthwhile to create more redundancy and sacrifice performance speed. If you are looking for storage and speed, it’s possible you can use a more performance speed based system.
You’ll want to do your homework before putting any type of RAID system together, but you can give us a call here at DriveFish and we will be glad to answer any questions you may have and help you construct a custom RAID setup suited to your needs.
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Solid State Drives and Digital Forensics
What is a solid state drive?
We have discussed the basics about solid state drives (SSD) here at DriveFish before. While our traditional hard disk drives contain sensitive platters and many moving parts on the inside, modern solid state drives use integrates circuit assemblies to serve as memory and store data, eliminating the need for moving parts. Solid state drives have decreased in price significant and are becoming commonly used for their increased performance and reliability. At DriveFish we know all too well the problems sensitive moving parts within a hard drive can create and look forward to a more stable future for hard drive data storage.
How does digital evidence work with solid state drives?
One overlooked aspect of this transition is digital forensics, or the retrieval of digital evidence, which is a critical factor in many of today’s legal cases. While great deals of effort must be made to truly format a traditional hard disk drive, solid state drives make it much easier to remove data in a seemingly permanent fashion. It has many experts worried, with one quoted as saying, “It seems possible that the golden age for forensic recovery and analysis of deleted data and deleted metadata may now be ending.” Manufacturers are attempting to create solutions balancing the needs of law enforcement with the needs of security for any public or government entity, but the specific construction of solid state drives imposes some design limitations. As it stands, certain secure erase tools use encryption making it seemingly impossible to retrieve targeted files.
It will be interesting to observe the future of digital forensics with solid state drives.
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To answer in a word: yes!
We completely understand hesitation in sending some of your most valuable personal data, we would do the same! And because of that, we treat every one of our customer’s data as priceless and incredibly sensitive, operating under a standard of non-disclosure. Our engineers only look at your data solely to confirm everything is valid, and beyond that consider it completely private.
This is our standard procedure, but if it makes you feel more comfortable, we are happy to offer a signed non-disclosure agreement. Our data recovery takes place in our offline, self-securing lab so there is no chance of your information ever leaking on to the Internet. We will keep your data for approximately 30 days after your recovery (to be sure you got everything you wanted), and then it will be digitally destroyed. The only bits of data that make it out of our lab are those that are delivered to you.
Of course you can feel free to call if you have further questions or concerns. While we can tell you all day about the security of our data recovery lab, sometimes it is much more comforting to hear someone’s voice. DriveFish’s friendly customer service representatives are happy to personally explain the process to you and discuss any other needs you may have that need to be accommodated.
Give us a call today!
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You have probably heard people talk about solid state drives as being the way of the future, but what exactly is a solid-state drive?
First of all, let’s differentiate between what we mean by solid state compared to regular hard disk drives. If you take the case off a hard disk drive (WHICH YOU SHOULD NEVER DO!), it looks kind of like the arm of a record player reading a CD. The disk you see is the top stack of disks that contain all the data of your hard drive. Your family photos, work documents, music, all just little bits of information on these disks. For this information to be displayed on your computer, a little needle on the end of the arm must read the information off the spinning disks and then communicate it with your computer so it can be displayed or listened to or whatever the case may be. Hard disk drives have been the most dominant device for memory storage since their introduction. While most of the world’s data is still on hard disk drives, the complicated interaction between the actuator arm and disks can create speed and reliability problems that can be solved with new technology.
This new technology is currently being dominated by solid-state drives. So what does solid state mean? Remember how we said hard disk drives have an arm like a record player that reads data off spinning disks? Well solid-state drives have taken these moving parts out of the picture. They use the same type of block input/output system as traditional hard disk drives, but their lack of moving components makes them much less susceptible physical shock or lost data. They are also silent and have significantly lower access time and latency. The main holdup keeping solid-state drives being in everyone’s computers is they are currently significantly more expensive than hard-disk drives, and typically have less capacity. However, technology advances on solid-state drives is continuing to rapidly approach reasonable consumer costs and capacities which will allow solid-state drives to likely become the standard data storage method for personal computers over the next few years.
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What in the world is a honeypot you ask?! To put it simply, a honeypot is like bait you set out to lure computer hackers and scammers into exposing themselves. This allows you to trace the origin of the hacker and identify him or her to prevent future attacks.
Of course, this also gives the security risk of exposing yourself to the hackers. Putting a honeypot out there is almost a call for attention from individuals looking to exploit others and take advantage of insecure setups. Naturally this isn’t a situation everyone is comfortable in, so honeypots aren’t for everyone. They can be a good idea for computer security experts or individuals with a need to insure system security.
There are several different types of honeypots of varying complexity. These can be physical machines or virtually emulated ones to lure a hacker into showing themselves before doing any damage. Honeypots can be very beneficial to some but not necessary for others, so if you are interested, research and see if it is an appropriate solution for your secure setup.
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The Internet can be a scary place where anyone can be a victim at any time. But some may take comfort in knowing that certain hackers and black hat computer experts are focusing their attention on targets they think can afford to take a hit. McAfee and Guardian Analytics has identified a network of thieves who have stolen anywhere from %60-100 million so far, with attempts to steal much more. The campaign has been dubbed “Operation High Roller” and the targets are U.S. companies with at least several million dollars in their accounts.
The operation consists of at least 12 different groups. Specific targets are identified using online reconnaissance, but beyond that methods of infiltration vary. Amongst other exploits, the hackers are finding security flaws in automated transactions. As with most computer security issues, the attackers will always move quickly to expand their capabilities, challenging the defenders of computer security systems to keep up.
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It is common knowledge that airplanes contain a “black box” that records all the activities taking place on a flight. But what about your car?
Since 2006, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has required new vehicles be made with a similar technology that functions as a black box inside automobiles. Facts such as how fast you were going, road conditions, and whether you were wearing your seat belt are recorded. In many states, this data is accessible by insurance companies without the car owner ever being aware.
Are car black boxes a violation of privacy, or an appropriate safety mechanism? Tell us what you think!
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We have been asked many times if we recover data from mobile devices, and the answer is yes. So aside from your photos and your music, how important could data from a mobile device be?
Well, a jury in New York recently convicted William Balfour based on information provided through digital forensics of his cell phone. A forensic investigator provided testimonial that triangulated Balfour’s phone at the time of a murder of which he was accused. The jurors indicated the cell phone records were the key to making their final decision.
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We see a lot of crazy disk damage here at DriveFish, but we can’t say we’ve ever received anything this extreme! A hang glider from British Columbia swallowed a memory card of pictures after his tandem partner was detached from the glider.
So what are the odds of recovering data from a memory card that has literally been digested by a human stomach? Pretty good according to Blackstone Forensics! The company believes the solid state nature of these memory cards can preserve the data through extreme environments, and data should be recoverable in spite of the disk’s journey.
While we certainly don’t wish any of this on anyone, we enjoy reading stories about the cutting edge of data recovery and digital forensics. But short of an event like this, we hope DriveFish can help you with all your data recovery needs!
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