Upgrade your computer management for the New Year! Businesses in our service area (between Rockville, Frederick, and Baltimore) can reference this advertisement for a free service visit (approx 1.5 hours) to fix small problems and talk about long term goals.
Small and medium businesses struggle with their IT departments. They either can’t afford the salary for a full time person at all, or the one(s) they hire don’t have the experience to grow the network as the company grows. Hiring an IT services business (like Kieri Solutions) is the solution for these businesses. At the budget end, for $800 a month, a small office can get preventative system checks, backups, security patches, and help with common computer issues. Larger businesses can get senior project management, on-call support, a full security program, helpdesk, and a host of other services for about the cost of one full time employee.
We are active supporters of local small businesses, particularly woman entrepreneurs! We proudly offer training on technical topics to current and future business owners through the Maryland Women’s Business Center, and also offer training events to all entrepreneurs a few times a year. If you are interested in training, send us an email at info@kieri.com and we will let you know the next opportunity. We are all in this together, so let’s succeed together!
This is a story about how we migrated a production server from RAID-1 to RAID-5 without losing data, using the PERC H730 controller.
Recently, we pushed a Dell server’s PERC RAID controller to its limit. (After making a verified good backup, of course).
Originally, the server’s hard drives were set up as a RAID 1 with two disks.
We added 3 more drives and wanted to switch the scheme to RAID 5 without losing data.
The steps:
Reboot, go into BIOS (F2)
Device Settings
Select the RAID Controller H730P Mini PERC Configuration Utility
Virtual Disk Management, then in the Operation area “Reconfigure virtual disks”
Raid level 5.
At this point, we were prompted to select physical disks, so I selected the new ones. A warning appeared that data would be erased on these disks (the new disks). Okay.
Continue through (Finish) and a statement appears that the reconfiguration has started and you can check the status to see when it finishes.
When we refreshed the menu for Virtual Disk Management, we saw the reconfiguration slowly processing. It took about 15 minutes for the first 1%.
25 hours to finish reconfiguration…
We don’t have time for this! This server needs to be back online!
So… we exited the BIOS, which restarted the server. Then into Windows!
We were pretty sure it would work, and it did. The modern PERC controller can handle reboots while it is rebuilding…
Over the last five years, hard drive encryption has become mainstream for enterprise-size businesses.
I recommend encryption for any business or personal computer which holds critical information, but it is important to understand that it only protects computers that have been physically accessed – it doesn’t help against viruses or attacks against the software.
How it works
The hard drive encryption software turns easily-readable files into encrypted cipher. In this example, “Pa$$w0rd!!” is the encryption key.
The hard drive is where your critical information is held. This information is stored in a logical, well defined matter, in data files that are stored just like the files you see when you open your C:\ drive. A very simple hack is to simply unscrew the target hard drive, plug it into the bad guy’s computer as a secondary drive, and access the files from D:\. This takes skills learned in the first year of a PC tech’s career. It bypasses your log-on passwords and any network security completely. This is what hard drive encryption protects against.
First year PC tech skills. This is also how we save your data when your computer dies (assuming the hard drive is OK).
An encrypted hard drive is split into two sections – a very small decryptor section at the beginning, and the main storage section. The main storage section has the encrypted data, but not any tools to decrypt it. The decryptor section has the knowledge to decrypt, but it doesn’t know the key.
This is visual depiction of an encrypted hard drive. The first section holds the logic to encrypt and decrypt data. The second section holds the actual data – your critical files.
The key is provided by an outside source such as you or a server on your network.
When the computer is powered on, it needs an outside source to provide the encryption key.
Once the key is entered (when the computer boots up), the encryption software will keep using it (storing it temporarily in RAM memory) until the computer is powered off.
Once the key is entered, the encryption software continually uses it until the computer is powered off. This gives the user a good experience because they can access files and use the computer normally, without constantly needing to decrypt files one by one. Since a computer needs to use thousands of files just to do basic tasks, this temporary key storage is necessary.
Automatic decryption once logged on is the reason why hard drive encryption is only a partial solution for security. Once the computer is turned on, the key is entered, and the operating system (such as Windows 10) is running, all files on the hard drive can be accessed across the network or by the logged on user. So all the normal security measures such as patches, antivirus, firewalls, and security policy are still necessary.
Bottom line: If there is any risk that your computer or hard drives could be physically stolen, invest in hard drive encryption.
There are several options ranging from workstation protection (Bitlocker, available with Pro versions of Windows 10), to extremely secure virtualization-compatible products like HyTrust DataControl for $400-$1000 per server. Work with a professional to make sure you have a good backup first, and a plan to troubleshoot issues. Losing the key or corrupting the encryption software can cause a loss of all data.
