Manufacturers drive full-disk encryption

Hard disk and flash drive manufacturers Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital are developing technology that encrypts data as it is stored and decrypts it when it is read back with no need of special security software, reports News Factor.com.

Security experts claim information stored in computers is normally protected by a password stored in the computer's operating system, but the data on the disk itself is not protected, so a savvy hacker or thief can sidestep the password protection and access the information.

Now hard disk and flash drive manufacturers have begun to turn to a technique known as full-disk encryption. Within a year or two, researchers say, all hard disks will be protected using the full-disk encryption method.

Oracle has released a tape drive, which the vendor says is smaller, faster and has more capacity than other tiered-storage devices that its competitors (namely IBM and EMC) offer, states Data Centre Dynamics.

The StorageTek T10000C tape drive has 5TB native capacity and 240Mbps native throughput. The solution can scale up to 1 000 petabytes, with 2:1 compression and includes in-line encryption.

James Cates, vice-president of hardware development at Oracle, says the drive stores more than three times more data on one cartridge than any other tape drive. “Combining it with the StorageTek SL3000 and SL8500 libraries help ensure that customers, regardless of size, can afford to retain critical data without concern for future scalability.”

DataCore Software, a storage virtualisation software provider, has released SANsymphony-V, a next-generation storage virtualisation software, says Channel Pro.

Two years in development, SANsymphony-V software enables data centres to use existing equipment and conventional storage devices to achieve the shared storage environment necessary to support dynamic virtual IT environments.

According to Datacore, the software helps avoid the many performance problems caused by bottlenecks and the lost business suffered from downtime that make customers hesitant to virtualise crucial business applications, such as e-mail and database systems.