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Dell puts its enterprise hard drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) offerings through a rigorous validation process before they are ever considered as additions to PowerEdge server portfolio. Only the very best drives that can meet exact specifications for performance, duty cycles, Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and HDD rotational vibration necessary for an enterprise-level environment are accepted for customer usage.
In order to provide ongoing support through the service life of enterprise dives, Dell provides a patented online firmware update capability via the Dell Update Package (DUP). The DUP process translates to less downtime due to firmware maintenance updates.
Types of drives and best fits:
Hard Disk Drives and Solid State Drives come in several varieties designed to address a wide range of customer requirements. These include:
- Solid State SAS and SATA Drives: Fast storage medium for random IO
- 10K & 15K SAS Hard Drives: Performance and availability for performance optimized applications
- 7.2K SAS & SATA Hard Drives: High capacity and exceptional $/GB for capacity optimized applications
- Entry Drives: Least expensive drives used in applications where low usage and limited total number of drives are applicable. Due to restrictions on use, these drives are available in a small number of systems and configurations.
PowerEdge next-generation servers offer a Cyber Resilient Architecture to help safely protect your data through your server lifecycle. All firmware for critical components (BIOS, iDRAC,NICs, HBAs, RAID, CPLD, storage drives, PSUs, etc.) is validated using cryptographic signatures to ensure that only authentic firmware is running in the server.
ISE – Instant Scramble Erase
In addition to digitally signed firmware, ISE is a new cryptographic feature for HDD and SSD that is standard within the next-generation of PowerEdge. ISE is known as instant erase, instant scramble erase, instant secure erase or crypto erase. When retiring or repurposing a system or array the next-generation PowerEdge servers can help you to permanently erase content (optionally) from HDDs or SDDs.
With ISE, you can use a standard command that triggers the drive to discard its hidden internal media encryption key, to self-generate a new, unrelated key, and then to start using the new key with its internal encryption/decryption engine. From that point forward the data already on the media is useless (“scrambled”). Even physical locations of reassigned logical blocks are scrambled (in the rare chance that data can be somehow recovered from these “bad” locations).
The drive now uses the new internal media encryption key for its transparent encryption and decryption. Regardless of the drive size, ISE operates consistently to help you repurpose drives quickly.