4 ms·

To be fair, this could be addressed via a firmware enforced write protect switch on the drive... or an electronically settable ball-point-pen resettable write-b

by nullc 6y ago

To be fair, this could be addressed via a firmware enforced write protect switch on the drive... or an electronically settable ball-point-pen resettable write-breaker. There are company now that sell drives with special WORM firmware. I love tape but the economics of tape really just don't look good today. The patent litigation over LTO8 basically assured that. Whole nearline SATA drives are significantly less expensive per byte than LTO8 tapes, even ignoring LTO drive/library costs.

est31 6y ago
> Whole nearline SATA drives are significantly less expensive per byte than LTO8 tapes, even ignoring LTO drive/library costs. In Germany, using non-bulk prices, HDDs seem to start at 19€ per TB while I could find multi-write LTO8 tapes costing 8€ per (compression disabled) TB.
- nullc 6y ago
  Oh. That is a massive change over the last 6 months. Okay, they're much closer now.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    there was a huge patent fight that delayed the production of LTO8 tapes for quite some time, when they finally released they commanded a huge premium, they are still inflated in price compared to LTO7 tapes per GB.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    The option has also been there to format LTO-7 tapes in LTO-8 drives and get 9TB each. That cost 7€/TB a couple years ago and 6€/TB today.
- syshum 6y ago
  While the media is is cheaper LTO8 drives are not. A single Disk writer with manual change can be around 4-5K USD. That is alot of tapes to recover the cost savings over HDD
  - LorenPechtel 6y ago
    Yup. This article made me recheck the economics of tape backup. You'll have to have a lot of data before it becomes cheaper than simply duplicating the storage. Worried about ransomware? Have a dedicated backup machine that does nothing else, it's as isolated as possible, it reads the data to be backed up and writes it to the backup drives.
  - est31 6y ago
    Indeed, it's not economical for most people. Even rental is probably not something that most people would bother with. Most people are served enough by the one or two HDDs they own, maybe a NAS.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Don't forget to average the cost of your drives and robots.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
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WalterBright 6y ago
I really really don't understand why devices don't routinely come with a physical (not software) write-protect switch on them. Disk drives should come with them. Routers should come with them (so malware cannot install itself). Etc.
- metroholografix 6y ago
  Doesn't get you much, unless the vulnerability requires a writable filesystem in order to be exploited or you really really really want to persist across reboots (not hard but not usually needed) or firmware updates (much harder to do robustly, expertise required). Malware can operate entirely in memory, not touching disk. If access is lost, reinfection can take place (has been used by nation state actors). Even the Mirai botnet which was done by amateurs didn't persist and simply reinfected. So it comes down to your potential adversaries. Actors deploying wide, non-targeted attacks Mirai-style get little value from persistence. It's simply an extra layer of unneeded complexity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - PhantomGremlin 6y ago
    Doesn't get you much It can do a lot in the right circumstances. E.g. if a USB thumb drive had a physical write-protect, it could be plugged into a potentially hostile computer without concern about losing the data on the drive. Years ago I saw a few USB thumb drives with that feature. But I don't know if they're out there any more. They're almost as scarce as hens' teeth.
    - Multicomp 6y ago
      Iirc the kanguru series of USB flash drives make bank now that they are one of the few remaining manufacturers of flash drives that have hardware write protect switches.
- SiVal 6y ago
  I agree. Hardware switches should also be put on computer cameras, microphones, network cards, etc. There will still be vulnerabilities, but most of us use locks on our house and car doors even though thieves can (and do) break the windows. Hardware switches on computer equipment can remove some vulnerabilities and (sometimes) add a means of recovery.
halfcat 6y ago
> There are company now that sell drives with special WORM firmware. Like what? I’d love to check this out.
- nullc 6y ago
  E.g. https://greentec-usa.com/ https://greentec-usa.com/ I have no experience with them-- I've just assumed it would be overpriced. I'd certainly be interested in worm drives for personal use (e.g. for access logs, and photo archival), but not so interested that I'd pay a big premium over standard drives. :)

by nullc 6y ago

est31 6y ago

> Whole nearline SATA drives are significantly less expensive per byte than LTO8 tapes, even ignoring LTO drive/library costs. In Germany, using non-bulk prices, HDDs seem to start at 19€ per TB while I could find multi-write LTO8 tapes costing 8€ per (compression disabled) TB.

nullc 6y ago
Oh. That is a massive change over the last 6 months. Okay, they're much closer now.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  there was a huge patent fight that delayed the production of LTO8 tapes for quite some time, when they finally released they commanded a huge premium, they are still inflated in price compared to LTO7 tapes per GB.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  The option has also been there to format LTO-7 tapes in LTO-8 drives and get 9TB each. That cost 7€/TB a couple years ago and 6€/TB today.
syshum 6y ago
While the media is is cheaper LTO8 drives are not. A single Disk writer with manual change can be around 4-5K USD. That is alot of tapes to recover the cost savings over HDD
- LorenPechtel 6y ago
  Yup. This article made me recheck the economics of tape backup. You'll have to have a lot of data before it becomes cheaper than simply duplicating the storage. Worried about ransomware? Have a dedicated backup machine that does nothing else, it's as isolated as possible, it reads the data to be backed up and writes it to the backup drives.
- est31 6y ago
  Indeed, it's not economical for most people. Even rental is probably not something that most people would bother with. Most people are served enough by the one or two HDDs they own, maybe a NAS.
pnutjam 6y ago
Don't forget to average the cost of your drives and robots.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 6y ago

I really really don't understand why devices don't routinely come with a physical (not software) write-protect switch on them. Disk drives should come with them. Routers should come with them (so malware cannot install itself). Etc.

metroholografix 6y ago
Doesn't get you much, unless the vulnerability requires a writable filesystem in order to be exploited or you really really really want to persist across reboots (not hard but not usually needed) or firmware updates (much harder to do robustly, expertise required). Malware can operate entirely in memory, not touching disk. If access is lost, reinfection can take place (has been used by nation state actors). Even the Mirai botnet which was done by amateurs didn't persist and simply reinfected. So it comes down to your potential adversaries. Actors deploying wide, non-targeted attacks Mirai-style get little value from persistence. It's simply an extra layer of unneeded complexity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- PhantomGremlin 6y ago
  Doesn't get you much It can do a lot in the right circumstances. E.g. if a USB thumb drive had a physical write-protect, it could be plugged into a potentially hostile computer without concern about losing the data on the drive. Years ago I saw a few USB thumb drives with that feature. But I don't know if they're out there any more. They're almost as scarce as hens' teeth.
  - Multicomp 6y ago
    Iirc the kanguru series of USB flash drives make bank now that they are one of the few remaining manufacturers of flash drives that have hardware write protect switches.
SiVal 6y ago
I agree. Hardware switches should also be put on computer cameras, microphones, network cards, etc. There will still be vulnerabilities, but most of us use locks on our house and car doors even though thieves can (and do) break the windows. Hardware switches on computer equipment can remove some vulnerabilities and (sometimes) add a means of recovery.

halfcat 6y ago

> There are company now that sell drives with special WORM firmware. Like what? I’d love to check this out.

nullc 6y ago
E.g. https://greentec-usa.com/ https://greentec-usa.com/ I have no experience with them-- I've just assumed it would be overpriced. I'd certainly be interested in worm drives for personal use (e.g. for access logs, and photo archival), but not so interested that I'd pay a big premium over standard drives. :)