After A Preset Time, This SSD Drive Destroys Data For Maximum Privacy

After A Preset Time, This SSD Drive Destroys Data For Maximum Privacy

A new type of SSD drive that works like a ticking time bomb for your data. But instead of blowing up, the drive automatically corrupts and destroys stored data after a preset time, ensuring maximum privacy and added security.

After A Preset Time, This SSD Drive Destroys Data For Maximum Privacy

What’s especially neat about the new technology, developed by researchers at Chuo University in Japan, led by professor Ken Takeuchiis, ist hat every file expires in its own time, instead of the whole drive nuking itself when the clock runs out.

To make it work this way, researchers took advantage of the fact that the error probability of the flash memory used in an SSD is highly predictable. So instead of employing error correction schemes to overcome the inherent faults with flash memory, the researchers actually intentionally introduce subtle errors when a file is being written, which starts a process where over time the data slowly degrades until it’s completely unreadable.

So imagine setting an expiry date for your browser history, and knowing that in a month it will all be automatically corrupted and destroyed. This new SSDs could also be employed where sensitive data is being collected, but isn’t supposed to be stored indefinitely. The technology introduces another level of security, but also privacy. So in the future when it comes time to sell your old laptop, leaving it on a shelf for a week might ensure its new owner won’t be able to retrieve any of your data.

[Nikkei Technology]


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