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If you've got custom drives with custom firmware, why does the scrub need to leave the drive? Couldn't they have a command that kicks off the scrub in-drive, wi
by sofaofthedamned 11y ago
If you've got custom drives with custom firmware, why does the scrub need to leave the drive? Couldn't they have a command that kicks off the scrub in-drive, with only a list of failed blocks returned?
- nickpsecurity 11y agoAre we talking about firmware as drivers executing on host or the microcontrollers on the drives? My proposal works on adapter in between the two or could replace HD microcontroller if you had willing vendor. Doing it on host sucks host CPU requiring more powerful and energy consuming processors given No of drives and data amount. Idea is to move straight-forward, possibly parallelizable algorithms off general-purpose, legacy CPU's onto cheaper, efficient ones more suited to algorithm. It wasn't uncommon for FPGA's to get an eightfold boost in performance on stuff like this in various experiments. In my field, high assurance INFOSEC, the main advantage is the use in inline, media encryptors. I really just knocked off specs and ideas of NSA's Type 1 IME given it was the best: http://m.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/ http://m.nsa.gov/ia/programs/inline_media_encryptor/ Also, Orange Book required full mediation and even SCOMP system mediated hardware I/O. Copying these lessons from the past made my design immune to DMA, firmware, and SMM attacks that were later discovered. Like above, offloading gets performance boost cuz inline I/O handles interrupt handling, prevents many cache flushes, and supports hardware accelerators. Also, keygen and storage stay off main server. Fun times.