Slashdot are reporting that eBay have started to deploy SSDs for their VMs. Apparently the SSDs save on rack space and therefore power. They are also reducing the VM deployment time, allowing them to get a VM up and running in 5 minutes.
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Some tests carried out by the “Non-Volatile Systems Laboratory” have revealed some serious flaws with SSDs ability to be securely erased. When using standard tools designed for spinning disks, the results were understandably bad. They also tried the built-in “Security Erase Unit” command and the results of this were generally not good. After being securely erased, most of the SSDs still contained some large fragments of the test files.
Some secure erasure software would be similarly inefficient for hard disks anyway, as things like remapped or bad sectors can still contain readable data which may not be erased during the process.
The simplest solution for securely erasing any data is to completely destroy the storage media. For hard drives this means making a real mess of the platters, for SSDs it means wrecking the whole PCB, data chips and controller chips.
We came across this software when we received an enquiry from a customer who wanted to take all their contact details from their iPhone 3G to iPhone 4 solid state devices. It definitely looks the part and so simple to use.
To put it in a nutshell, this could be the future for storage technology. The memristor has been the missing link from back when resistors, inductors and capacitors were originally created. What has now changed is the use of nano technology which has allowed the creation of the fourth electronic component; the memristor.
Hard disk manufacturer Seagate is reportedly working on combining cheap unreliable solid state storage technology with more expensive and reliable technology to bring low cost SSD’s to consumers. At least we won’t be seeing any more of those savage 2.5″ Momentus drive head crashes!
The next battle in the war on SSDs may have just begun. Apparently Seagate are convinced that SSD makers such as Samsung and Intel are violating some of Seagate’s (and Western Digital’s) patents. The wizardry which relates to the way a storage device communicates with a computer is at stake, even though Seagate themselves don’t appear too taken with an SSD based future. CEO Bill Watkins is quoted as saying, “realistically, I just don’t see the flash notebook sell.” I would have to agree with that at the moment. Cost per GB, reliability and speed are among the many drawbacks currently facing solid state drives when compared to traditional hard disk drives. Once these issues are resolved then the need for regular backups will become all the more important in my eyes at least. There are currently many ways in which we can resurrect a failing hard drive but next to no ways to recover a failed SSD.