Hard Drive Alarm Smart Introduction _ Hardware Maintenance

Generate background

With more and more disk disc capacity, the magnetic head technology is more and more sensitive, the head of the flying altitude is lower and higher, not only increase the capacity and performance, at the same time, the data storage risk is also slowly increasing. In order to achieve higher single disk capacity, the storage unit on the disc is constantly shrinking, the data signal is getting weaker. Although the system can recognize these weak signals by improving the sensitivity and altitude of the magnetic heads, these signals are more likely to be disturbed by external signals. In addition, the more the closer the disc and the head, the high-speed rotation in the collision between the opportunity is also increasing. The security of the data is getting more and more worrying.

At this point, whether the data on the hard disk is secure is a problem that every user must be concerned about. At the same time, it is also the concern of every hard disk manufacturer. S.M.A.R.T (self monitoring, analytical and Reporting Technology, self-monitoring Analysis Report) technology was introduced to address this problem.

S.M.A.R.T concept

Since our data is mainly stored on the hard disk, it is essential to protect the data without the failure of the hard disk. S.M.A.R.T is the universal security technology that most of the hard drives are currently using, and you can see this option when you start the machine by entering the BIOS setup (see Figure 1). S.M.A.R.T can detect the head, disk, motor, control circuit and other devices, for the non-sudden hardware failure has a certain predictive capacity. In the new technology, the concept of fault weakening is also introduced, which delays the attack and provides sufficient time for the user. In fact, hard drive failure 60% is mechanical, S. M. A R. T can be a part of this fault.

Figure 1 BIOS Setup screen

At present, the hard disk produced by each manufacturer is different, S. M. A R. T has different implementations, but they share basic requirements. The first is to have a drive that supports S.M.A.R.T, followed by an operating system that supports S.M.A.R.T command execution, such as the popular Windows 9x series. In addition, there is an application that can display S.M.A.R.T alert information. On this basis, each manufacturer has developed a unique hard disk protective firmware. The more outstanding are WD Data Defender, Kun Teng's dps, Sps,maxtor's Maxsafe, Shockblock, Seagate Seashield, DST and IBM's DFT technology. On the basis of S.M.A.R.T, the extended extension is carried out in different extents to make the hard disk data more secure.

S.M.A.R.T technology is an inexpensive data protection that alerts you to a hard drive failure, and it's cheap, so it's popular. Hope that the majority of users can use this resource, at the lowest cost to complete the primary protection of data.

Security risks

We know that today's hard drives support S.M.A.R.T, which is a self-monitoring, analysis, reporting technology. Its development has gone through three versions. S.m.a.r.tⅰ can only accumulate errors in the operation of the hard drive and make a security warning when the cumulative error is reached to a certain number of times. S.m.a.r.tⅱ has improved the error prevention system to automatically read and scan the hard drive beyond the system operation instructions. This is a big step ahead of S.m.a.r.tⅰ, where the usual heads are not read or written and can be detected and reported.

Now S.M.A.R.T technology has reached the third generation, S.m.a.r.tⅲ not only can automatically read the hard disk scan, the cumulative number of errors occurred, reached a certain number of times after the security warning, but also increased ECC (Error-correction Code) error correction, ECC error correction for errors that occur in disk work and in automatic read scanning. However, even S.m.a.r.tⅲ, the monitoring of the disk and the protection of data is not comprehensive enough. Because S.M.A.R.T can only read and scan the sector, it cannot write back tests on sector state. Also, errors that cannot be fixed by ECC cannot be resolved. Therefore, it is not enough to rely solely on S.M.A.R.T technology.

In response to this problem, each hard disk manufacturer, in addition to their products are consistent with S.M.A.R.T, has launched its own unique data security protection mechanism. One of the most advanced and effective is the western data Western Digital hard drive data defender technology of the information lifeguard.