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'Hybrid' HDD Technology To Allow Data Access Without Booting
jfruhlinger writes "You've got a file on your laptop that you need to access — but you don't want to wait for your laptop to boot up to get at it. New technology from the company Silicon Storage Technology will make the contents of a hard drive accessible via a computer's USB port even when the computer is powered down. 'FlashMate combines hardware, firmware and software in a system application subsystem that manages a notebook computer's hard drive. It is based on SST's expertise in NAND flash controllers and memory subsystem design with Insyde Software's expertise in PC BIOS, system software and power management. FlashMate can work in conjunction with features such as Windows Vista ReadyDrive and serve as nonvolatile cache for the hard disk drive, thus enabling a standard hard disk drive to function as a hybrid drive.'"
Who boots a laptop? I just close the lid on my Mac, and it goes to sleep. I open it up and there's my stuff, in less time than it takes to plug in a cable. It'll sleep happily for weeks without running out of juice. The only time I ever reboot it is when it needs a software update.
TFA is an elaborate solution to the wrong problem. The right problem is, "how can we make laptops that don't need to be booted every time they're used?"
Does data become just a bit too accessible? Just asking, what are the built in safe guards. None were noted in the article, but I may have missed its being mentioned.
Ok, they jammed a USB frontend on the drive system. Good thinking, but not exactly revolutionary thinking - every cheapo device in the toy section seem to have a USB drive interface anymore (I'm only waiting for the first Happy Meal toy with a USB plug - "Experience vast adventures on your computer with the latest bid from Disney/Nick"). Should have always been that way, but good that it's getting that way now at least.
TFA doesn't say a thing about authentication, authorization, or accounting. How does this know who's checking the data? How does it decide to allow them? Where and how does it store the facts about who accessed what and when? The AAA process is a cornerstone of security -- computer or otherwise.
;-) But other systems require the drive to be taken out or the machine to be booted at least. It's a lot easier to make sure no one can boot your machine (startup password, bootloader password, no booting from CD etc.) than to make sure they can't hook up a USB cable to it. It's also a lot harder to catch someone hooking up a cable for a couple of minutes than tearing down your laptop and taking the drive (or sliding the drive out if it's easily removable like some are -- taking it to another system and hooking it up are still time-consuming and conspicuous).
Yes, I know physical security is paramount. A building needs more than one cornerstone, obviously.
BTW, the other cornerstones are secure design (again, in software/hardware or outside computers altogether) and data hiding (encryption, shredding paper, window shades, closed doors, setting proper permissions so that AAA actually matters, etc).
This seems like an excellent way of avoiding attention to the real problem - why a modern OS takes so long to boot.
Jolyon
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TFA says while the computer is powered off. Not partially booted, not on, off. This is an evolutionary step from Apple's Disk Mode.
So, while Disk Mode is cool, it is still not the same. Because with this, you could transfer files from a desktop to a laptop during a power outage.
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To be fair, software-copy-protected apps on the Mac don't like being transferred that way, either, but at least for most of them, you just have to reauthorize them. There are a few, however, that are poorly written and break completely (you have zero days to register this software before saving and printing are disabled), requiring reinstallation of the app after a transfer. (Finale, I'm looking at you.) Fortunately, such problems are rare in my experience.
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Mostly correct.
IIRC, software-switchable USB silicon does exist, though it isn't all that common. Of course, if you switch one of the standard USB connectors over into device mode, you'd still need a highly nonstandard USB cable with two "type A" connectors on it instead of a "type A" and a "type B"---a specialized cable that almost nobody actually owns. By contrast, FireWire requires only a standard cable that anyone who has any (non-camcorder) FireWire peripherals should already own. Thus, unless you waste a whole lot of space on the back of the case for a connector that is used exclusively for this, USB won't be even remotely as convenient as FireWire in spite of the ubiquity of USB.
USB really sucks for this sort of thing. I'd imagine that's why Apple didn't choose to do USB target disk mode when they dropped SCSI despite the fact that all Macs had USB by that time. USB just isn't suited to the task (not to mention that it is slower in practice, hogs the CPU, etc., thus making it a really bad choice for booting off another machine's hard drive).
Besides, who waits for a computer to boot these days? Haven't people heard of sleep or hibernation? It takes maybe five seconds from opening my laptop to actually getting work done, including the time spent typing in my login password....
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One they really should mention because it usually catches new Mac users out: how to de-install an application. I spent some time looking for the Add/Remove Programs equivalent before I found that you just drop the application in the Trash.
Also, USB2 wasn't finalized until 2000. Firewire was around when USB was painfully slow.
I'd imagine that's why Apple didn't choose to do USB target disk mode when they dropped SCSI despite the fact that all Macs had USB by that time
More likely this was due to USB at the time being 1.1 at 12mbps. Firewire at 400mbps gave it a good whupping until the advent of USB 1.2/2.0HS years later. Until only recently, USB was not much better than ADB at doing data transfers.
The fact that they used the same connector on both ends was icing on the cake. USB target disk mode would probably require puting a "B" connector on the back that would have target mode as its only use. (waste of money)
Another thing is firewire is chainable, though not particularly useful for this.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.