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Governments and public sector organizations spend millions globally each year destroying data storage devices despite sustainable alternatives

New Blancco report sparks conversations on SSD policy reform, revealing financial and environmental costs as well as security concerns for public sector organizations

AUSTIN and LONDON – March 9, 2022—New research launched today by Blancco Technology Group (LON: BLTG), the industry standard in data erasure and mobile lifecycle solutions, reveals current practices and policies for device sanitization within the public sector. For Blancco’s study, The Price of Destruction: Exploring the Financial & Environmental Costs of Public Sector Device Sanitization, researchers spoke to 596 government IT leaders across nine countries. The survey revealed that the governments and public sector organizations represented spend as much as USD$17M annually on the physical destruction of solid-state drives (SSDs), a data storage device widely used both independently and within laptops, desktops, and servers.

Additionally, replacement costs added another $40M, bringing expenses up to $57M for destroying public sector technology that is often still usable. For 70 organizations surveyed in each country, the costs for SSD destruction and replacement reached between $6.9M and $7.3M for the U.S. and between $6.4M and $6.9M for the U.K.

Environmental Costs

With global electronic (e-waste) called the “world’s fastest growing domestic waste stream,” the study also explores the environmental costs of physical destruction and the public sector’s current engagement with sustainable alternatives. Unnecessary destruction increases IT operations and materials costs for fiscally constrained public sector organizations. It also fosters increased e-waste creation during a global call for more prudent environmental stewardship.

Despite 54% of respondents agreeing that reuse of SSDs is better for the environment than physical destruction and almost all respondents (93%) saying their organization had defined plans to reduce the environmental impact caused by destroying IT equipment, less than a quarter (21%) are actively implementing those plans.

Security Concerns

For security reasons, physical destruction is still mandated if decommissioned drives were used to store classified or secret data. For unclassified data-bearing assets, other data sanitization solutions are available.

On the whole, respondents were well informed of their country’s or region’s respective data protection laws. However, some respondents’ processes for carrying out compliant SSD sanitization are concerning. For example, 78% of respondents globally said they reformat drives to sanitize them. Unfortunately, formatting alone can still leave drives vulnerable during transport or storage, and much of the data can be recovered with forensics tools easily available online.

“Governments and public sector organizations are responsible for handling some of the most sensitive information in the world. But several factors, including accelerated digital transformation, rising numbers of public sector data breaches and global sustainability initiatives, are changing the data management landscape,” said Alan Bentley, President of Global Strategy, Blancco. “With growing environmental and funding pressures, there is a need for these public sector operations to be more sustainable and efficient while maintaining robust security. Public sector organizations must explore SSD sanitization alternatives to demonstrate prudent use of agency funds and a greater contribution to national and international sustainability efforts.”

“We’ve seen several public sector departments benefit from moving away from destroying data bearing assets to reusing them or building up the circular economy. Our study highlights that there are significant opportunities for policy reform surrounding SSD data protection as national policymakers seek to steward financial, environmental, and data resources entrusted to their care,” added Bentley.

As the report concludes, governments and public sector organizations are committing to sustainability improvements, but very few have pushed forward with their implementation. This is resulting in a high cost of SSD destruction and replacement.

With overnments and public sector organizations under the spotlight when it comes to spending, it is increasingly urgent that they consider sustainable alternatives that extend device life, maintain lock-tight data security on end-of-life SSDs and, ultimately, save public services millions of dollars.

According to Blancco’s global study of 596 public sector respondents:

  • 41% of respondents say physical destruction is mandated by law to physically destroy SSDs that contain classified data, so they destroy all SSDs “just in case.”
  • Almost a quarter (22%) are unaware of alternative methods of sanitization.
  • Between 23% to 52% of organizations within a country believed that physical destruction was cheaper than other sanitization solutions, including those that would facilitate reuse and longer device life.
  • 35% believe there is no certified or approved vendor or solution that provides another option for them.
  • Between 37% and 45% of our respondents’ devices, or the drives alone, are sent offsite for physical destruction.
  • 37% of respondents are “aware of only” the NIST SP 800-88 r1 and do not know guideline details.

For full analysis, read the report here: http://www.blancco.com/the-price-of-destruction.

 

News

Spectra Logic Strengthens Tape Storage Leadership Position with LTO-9 Availability for its Family of Tape Library Solutions

With LTO-9, Spectra TFinity Tape Library Stores an Exabyte of Uncompressed Data Making it the World’s Largest Data Storage System

 Spectra Logic, a leader in data management and data storage solutions, today announced the availability of the ninth generation of LTO technology for its family of tape library solutions, including the Spectra TFinity ExaScale, T950, T950v, T680, T380, T200, T120, T50e and Spectra Stack. These tape libraries support LTFS, WORM, hardware encryption, and Spectra’s exclusive Media Lifecycle Management.  Certified with all major ISV packages, Spectra’s tape libraries seamlessly integrate with Spectra’s BlackPearl® Object Storage Platform, enabling users to create a multi-storage ecosystem for maximum storage, access and preservation of data to disk, tape and cloud. To learn more about LTO-9, register for Spectra Logic’s upcoming webinar, “Unleashing the Power of LTO-9,” on 23rd September 2021, at 4 p.m. BST.

“The industry is seeing a resurgence of tape storage deployments by organisations with growing data repositories, even if they already have disk and cloud, because tape provides the greatest storage capacity at the lowest cost per terabyte with exceptional reliability,” said Christophe Bertrand, senior industry analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Tape technology, such as LTO-9, also offers unmatched air gap protection against ransomware, enabling organisations to protect their data offline and beyond the reach of malevolent threat actors.”

The new ninth generation of LTO (Linear Tape-Open) tape technology is designed for even greater data storage density and speed, providing up to 18TB of native capacity per cartridge (up to 45TB with compression*) surpassing the capacity of LTO-8 by 50 percent. Full-height LTO-9 drives deliver uncompressed transfer speeds of up to 400 MB/second, almost two times faster than current hard disk drives. In addition, LTO-9 drives are backward compatible with LTO-8 tape media, allowing users to read/write LTO-8 media.

“Today’s news of LTO-9 tape availability confirms the extensibility of this popular open format that was developed more than 20 years ago,” said Nathan Thompson, CEO and Founder of Spectra Logic. “With each generation, new features have been introduced, such as WORM, LTFS and hardware encryption. We recently made software updates for our installed base of thousands of LTO libraries to enable customers to add or upgrade to LTO-9. And since we are the first to offer a tape library – the TFinity — that can store an astounding exabyte of native data with LTO-9 drives and media, we couldn’t be more excited about the long-term prospects of LTO tape technology for our customers.”

 

The World’s Largest Data Storage System with LTO-9

Designed to meet demanding backup, archive and data protection requirements, the Spectra TFinity Tape Library addresses exponential data growth in such industries as high performance computing, scientific research, media and entertainment, cloud storage, education, healthcare, finance and traditional IT. The Spectra TFinity provides organisations with the ultimate in capacity, performance, reliability and scalability at a much lower price point than other storage options.

 

Highlights of Spectra’s TFinity Tape Library Include:

  • Tri-Media – The only tape library to support three tape technologies in the same library (LTO, IBM’s TS 11xx and Oracle’s T10000)
  • Scalable from 3 to 45 frames, over 56,000 slots, with bulk load capability
  • Advanced dual robotics for higher performance and greater reliability
  • Maximum compatibility to work with any third-party software package
  • Custom front library panels that showcase customer brand

 

Spectra LTO-9 Certified Tape Media

With today’s news, Spectra extends its Certified Media process to support and improve the characteristics of LTO-9 media. Spectra Certified Media undergoes a rigorous inspection and verification process to ensure that it is the highest possible grade of tape media on the market and comes with a lifetime guarantee. Additionally, Media Lifecycle Management ensures the safety of data by providing continuous assessments on more than 40 different metrics throughout the life of each tape. Detailed reporting mitigates any media problems and restore issues, allowing users to copy and move data onto new tapes should it be necessary.

 

*2.5:1 compression ratio

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About Spectra Logic Corporation

Spectra Logic develops a full range of data storage and data management solutions that help customers store, manage, preserve and use vast amounts of data to advance their strategic missions and increase value for their organisations. Dedicated solely to data storage innovation for more than 40 years, Spectra Logic empowers organisations worldwide to harness the power of their data with scalable and modern solutions to accelerate breakthroughs and success in the market. To learn more, visit www.Spectralogic.com.