Data Recovery Newsletters - November 2007

Linux File Systems — What You Need To Know

Earlier this year we entered a new era of hard disk storage when manufacturers rolled out a 1TB single hard disk drive. One hard disk drive manufacturer is planning to deliver 4TB hard disk drives in 2011. While we all expect our personal libraries of music, videos and documents to increase over the next few years, the entertainment industry is expecting to see a 1000% increase in total digital storage. According to analysis by Coughlin Associates, more than six exabytes of digital storage will be used for archiving, content conversion and content preservation by 2012. An exabyte is a billion gigabytes in decimal terms. Another way to visualize this is in terms of DVDs; one exabyte is equivalent to 250 million DVDs. (That’s the 4GB size.) Six exabytes would equal 1.5 billion DVDs.

Transmitted computer data isn’t far behind. Networking giant Cisco Systems, Inc. published a forecast about the amount of data that will flow through the Internet in the very near future. The report lists total Internet traffic nearly doubling every two years and that consumer IP traffic will surpass business traffic and will be at 18 exabytes per month by 2011. Global Internet video (excluding peer-2-peer usage) is estimated to be approximately 120 petabytes per month in 2006.

As Internet IP traffic grows, storage needs will also grow. We’ll move from the terabyte era to the exabyte era in a matter of years.

Your users or clients are dealing with an explosion of data growth. The challenge to IT professionals right now is managing all of this data and improving file access performance. Why do we say “improving”? Maintaining the status quo is not good enough. Large data storage devices are storing millions or even billions of files. With data storage systems growing exponentially our accessing tools need to be progressing as well. In addition to storing large data sets, what options are available for file systems? When an unforeseen data loss occurs with one of these behemoths, who can provide data recovery?

Over the years, Linux has become the operating system of choice for many IT professionals. In the Linux environment, there are many different file systems available. With all the choices, selecting the right file system for users or clients can be challenging.

To learn more about Linux systems, testing and recoveries visit the Linux information page

Functionality, Uses & Selection of Data Wiping Utilities

It’s not a surprise that in today’s corporate environment a large majority of intellectual property is stored electronically. As such, IT personnel know that data security is important from acquisition to disposal. Millions of dollars are spent on backup and storage policies, network security and firewall protection in order to protect their critical data. Yet, when it comes to retiring old computers or systems with proprietary information, many still forget to ensure that the information is permanently wiped from these drives – leaving them vulnerable to major security breaches.

Wiping Utility Functionality

Even after files are placed in the computer’s recycle bin and the drive has been reformatted, data can still be recovered. This is because the act of deleting files or reformatting volumes only removes the entries in the index or table of contents that point to the data. In order to permanently remove the data from a hard drive, a wiping utility that overwrites the actual data is necessary.

Wiping Utility Uses

No matter what product a company chooses to incorporate into their lifecycle data management process, it is clear that data wiping utilities have two core functions. Data wiping utilities are critical to ensuring proprietary information does not fall into the wrong hands. With that said, old computers, laptops and servers that are going to be recycled or retired should be wiped of all data prior to being discarded.

Secondly, data wiping is fundamental in reducing the risk of security breaches, these programs also help companies comply with laws and regulations regarding data retention and privacy.

Selecting a Data Wiping Utility

Managers can achieve peace of mind, traceable destruction documentation and be assured of proper compliance by working with a specialized, reputable electronic recycling and data destruction company. Although it doesn’t take much to build a product that wipes or erases information, it’s critical to ensure the product selected allows one’s company to remain compliant while reducing risk. Specifically, managers or IT personnel responsible for hardware disposal and data security should ensure they look for a product that:

1. Is certified. This means that authorities have tested it and certified that the standards the product says it adheres to are met.
2. Delete or format is not enough. Ensure data is inaccessible by overwriting it not attempting to delete it.
3. Is flexible. You don’t want to have to change IT infrastructure with the implementation of a data wiping tool. As such, look for a product that can fit into any kind of system and does not require system configurations.
4. Offers erasing reports. Reports that verify or confirm that what you told the tool to do was actually done are a must. A good reporting mechanism will give you an exact overview of what has been done so an operator can cross reference it with its active management system.
5. Ensures security measures are met. Select a tool that has license authorization to ensure that only those who are supposed to be using the erasing tool are.

The bottom line is that in today’s electronic information age, data wiping tools are not a nice to have, they are a must – regardless of the size of the organization – and need to be incorporated into overall data security and business continuity plans.

New Global Survey from Kroll Ontrack Reveals Major Weaknesses in Enterprise Compliance Policies

Kroll Ontrack recently released the results of a global survey that showed many companies fail to include data recovery as part of their companies’ compliance policies, opening themselves up to dire business consequences. Despite the fact that 78 percent of respondents believe that data recovery is the most important component of a compliance plan, only 50 percent say it is part of their company’s compliance policy.

Given the penalties, it is startling that nearly half of respondents, 43 percent, said they don’t believe their companies test their backup systems to ensure data can be produced if needed. Because natural disasters (i.e. the San Diego fires and Hurricane Katrina), human error, and software and hardware malfunctions are unpredictable, this finding reveals that critical electronic data is in jeopardy of being unrecoverable, making companies vulnerable to business-halting sanctions.

To read the full release visit press releases