April 2019 – STB Suite

In this Issue:

STB Suite now Pay per purge?

April Fools!

The fastest, most versitile and still UNLIMITED Test Suite that can purge all drive protocols is still just $4995.

You can purchase the STB Suite today and purge, wipe, or erase all the SSD’s and HDD’s you have your or data center needs erased for one price. Purge a mixture of protocols, drive types, manufacturers and speeds using your test system. The STB Suite does not charge you each time you use it and won’t stop running.

Here’s a few articles and FAQ’s to get you started wiping data off your drives!

Can the STB Suite really be used for unlimited drive purging?
How much to purge per drive?
Faster than DoD 5220/NIST Disk Purge?
How to setup a multi-drive Disk Purge
STB Suite and our Drive Purging history

Keep in mind, STB does much more than just purge data.

Not only can the STB Suite handle these drive purging needs but if you do have a problem after you’ve purged the data or the drives are preventing you from erasing them with the STB Suite you can do more advanced drive testing like:

update Firmware
reset the drive to factory defaults
check/screen or set the HDD/SSD block size
check/screen drives based on SMART attributes
check/screen drives based on P and G Lists
Experience that speaks for itself

We’ve been purging drives for over 2 decades! With our original DoD certified purging tool the SCSI Data Scrubber the STB Team knows what it takes to purge drives totally, completely, quickly, and with a detailed audit trail. As you know 20 years ago there were no SATA drives on the market. SCSI, SAS, FC, and SATA drives have changed over the years but the STB Suite can still purge all of them utilizing the newest technologies, methods, and standards for purging the latest protocols, biggest, and fastest drives on the market.

STB Suite v10.2 Released

We’re proud to announce the release of STB Suite version 10.2. We’ve fixed, added, and improved the STB Suite in version 10.2. This release is available for current Performa customers and with your active Performa you should receive your upgrade shortly. You can see the release notes below and please let us know what you think about this new version.

Changes and New Features include:

In Buffer File Operations, allowing larger than 128 block transfers. SMART raw data read fix, SMART data formatting with comma’s and Recover Security Locked Drive, Unlock Drive & Disable Password.

Background Scan Event Count screening, number of drives selected displayed in device window and 3 SSD-specific test sequnces added.

Read all the details in the Full 10.2 Release Notes

Ask Dr. SCSI – Changing Block Sizes?

Q. "I am used to being able to change block size on SAS and FC drives, from 512 bytes to 520 etc, so the drives can be used in RAID systems. How do I change block size on SATA drives?"

A. Yes, SAS & FC drives will usually allow you to change to block size of the drive, from 512 to 520, from 520 to 512, etc. The main reason this is possible is because the SCSI specification supports this operation.

On the other hand, the SATA specification does NOT support block change operations. This means that without special custom or OEM firmware in the drive a SATA drive’s block size is fixed and cannot be changed.

There are some RAID manufacturers, EMC for one, who do sell RAID systems using SATA drives. If you examine one of these drives you will see that it does report a blocksize of 520 bytes. However, this is done by using a special interposer card between the drive and the RAID enclosure. This interposer fakes things and makes the drive appear to have 520 byte sectors. If you remove the interposer from these drives and examine the bare drive you will see it is 512 byte drive. We have also recently seen some RAID SATA drives with no interposers, which report a 520 byte block size. These drives have special OEM firmware and have no means to change the block size back to 512.

So – the short answer is, you cannot change the block size on a SATA drive.

Data Purging Video with the STB Suite

Check out the new new training video available in the Virtual Training Center covering how to Performa Unlimited Data Purging with the STB Suite.

Unlimited Drive Purging with STB Suite

This video will demonstrate to wipe Disk Drives to DOD/NIST erasure standards. Purge one to hundreds of drives with no cost per drive!

You can use SATA SECURE ERASE, Multi-pass IO overwrite, or SANATIZE and more.

Simple, Quick and Easy to use.

What is Performa?

Performa is the STB Suite annual support and maintenance plan.

In most cases each purchase of the STB Suite includes 12 months of Performa coverage.

What does that coverage include?

Updates to the STB Suite
- There are typically two major updates to the STB Suite per year. In between these major updates there are typically a number of maintenance updates which will be used to fix bugs and occasionally introduce new features.
- With Performa coverage you are entitled to all of these.
Product Support
- Performa coverage provides you with contact with our development team, to answer questions, discuss changes or improvements, etc. With decades of storage experience our support team is willing and able to help you.
  
  Our World-class support typically responds to email support issues within one hour!
New License discounts
- SCSI Toolbox now offers attractive discounts on new licenses when you keep your licenses covered by the Performa program.