1 Terabyte Drives

The arrival of the new one-terabyte drives is just one reminder of how fast storage capacity is growing. The one-terabyte limit seems like a significant milestone.

What does this mean? Well, it means server storage can be consolidated and it means that information needs not be moved off to archives or deleted. It also allows you to store videos and other storage hogs on the hard drive.

As this trend continues, we may seen entirely new patterns for backing up data and in what we store on the disks. While this will probably be a good overall change, the sheer size of the data stored will become a burden on other aspects of the computer -- and to our ability to make sense from all the information at our finger tips.

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Hard Drive Reliability

Here is an interesting article on hard drive reliability. Now that there are customers, such as Google, with hundreds of thousands of hard drives in service, there is becoming a database of actually performance characteristics. What I found most interesting is that the type of drive is not particularly important. I had always assumed that the extra money I paid for SCSI drives would be rewarded by longer service life. The findings seem to indicate that environmental factors, such as heat and power fluctuations, kill drives no mater what technology is being used. I'll spend more money on the environment and less on the disks.

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Strong Password Generator

Here is one of many sites that creates a strong password. While there are a number of sites that can do this, this site creates a text string that makes it a bit easier to remember. For example, #h7M5%�7 comes with a string: # harry 7 MICROSOFT 5 % � 7. Some people may find this easier to remember and anything that can help people to have stronger passwords is a good thing. Also, you may be able to write down this password for your wallet with less fear that some will figure out that it's a password.

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Boot and Nuke: Disk Eraser

DBAN's "Boot and Nuke" disk eraser is a convenient way to completely erase a hard drive or other storage medium.

You create a diskette, boot from the diskette, and then select the storage device you want to erase. There are a number of settings that can be used depending on how paranoid you are. If you're erasing truly sensitive information, it does not hurt to be very paranoid.

This program is open source and free to use. There are a number of other programs that do this type of work, but this looks to be one of the more convenient ones out there.

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External Hard Disk Enclosure

There are many ways to store data externally. In a school there are many good reasons to use external storage. For one, the student may take it from computer to computer. Another advantage is that the school can lock up the devices in a secured area at night. What makes the WiebeTech enclosure special is that it is built for rough use and for fast connection speeds.

These units would be excellent for a multimedia lab, storing sensitive information, and for backups. Just remember to use encryption if you are storing sensitive information. These devices are portable.

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