Newsletter Archives

• Terabyte update 2021

  Posted on June 14th, 2021 at 02:45 Will Fastie Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ISSUE 18.22 • 2021-06-14

  HARDWARE

  

  By Will Fastie

  The price of storage is in flux for a variety of reasons, making predictions extremely difficult.

  In my previous article on this subject about a year ago (AskWoody 17.21.0), I wrote an expanded version of an article I have been writing on my personal site for a number of years. The article attempted to illustrate the difference in price between hard disk drives (HDD, rotating magnetic discs) and solid-state drives (SSD, flash memory). The goal was to establish that HDD had a significant price advantage over SSD; over the period of time covered, SSDs were small, very expensive, and primarily used as small boot drives in PCs needing high performance.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.22.0 (2021-06-14).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.22.F (2021-06-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, hardware, HDD, SSD, storage, Storage Prices

• If you use Win10 BitLocker on a solid state drive, you need to follow MS’s advice and re-activate it

  Posted on November 7th, 2018 at 18:23 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  There’s a bug in most self-encrypting SSDs that leaves the data on the drives wide open. It’s complicated, but in theory anyone who can get at the hardware-encrypted SSD can retrieve all the data on it.

  One of the advantages of BitLocker is that it encrypts hard drives so they can’t be cracked, even if a miscreant gets physical access to it.

  By default, BitLocker running on Windows 10, set to encrypt a self-encrypting SSD, will flip over to the SSD’s built-in capabilities. Which, as we found out on Monday, is not secure.

  The solution? Run BitLocker to turn off the hardware protection, then run it again to turn on software protection.

  Computerworld Woody on Windows.

  Thx @gborn.

  Windows Patches/Security Bitlocker, SSD

• Windows 10 version 1803 isn’t compatible with Toshiba solid state drives, either

  Posted on May 14th, 2018 at 07:33 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Last week we learned that Microsoft didn’t bother to test Win10 version 1803 on some of its Surface Pro (2017) laptops — if they had, they would’ve discovered that 1803 crashes the system entirely. Every Surface Pro (2017) with an Intel solid state drive crashes. Every. Single. One.

  Now we’ve received official confirmation that Win10 1803 doesn’t work with Toshiba SSDs, either. Microsoft says they “may experience degraded battery life” but I’m seeing reports that they turn hot as a fiddle in Devil Went Down to Georgia. (That’s my favorite version.)

  Computerworld Woody on Windows.

  Thx to Wazhai.

  Windows Patches/Security SSD, Toshiba, Win10 1803

• Flash-based solid-state drives nearly impossible to erase

  Posted on February 23rd, 2011 at 03:36 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  If you’re trying to really delete data from a Flash-based SSD drive, or even a USB drive, you’re in for some interesting times.

  See my InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.

  Other Flash memory, SSD