Storage systems are utilized to process and store sensitive data. This sensitive data includes medical records, financial data and even details of weapons simulations. Such data must be securely managed so that it is not contaminated, lost, or improperly leaked. Currently, such data is stored on data storage devices (e.g., disk drives) which tend to be readily replaceable to facilitate repair, failure, and migration to faster, cheaper and larger devices.
The ability to remove devices from the system means that data in the system could become vulnerable when a device is removed. This vulnerability could increase the risk of privacy law violations and/or increase the likelihood that sensitive data will be released.
Furthermore, when storage devices are removed improperly, data stored in the system could be lost. For example, if two disks are removed from a RAID-5 disk array, the data stored in the array will be lost. The removal could be done out of malice or human error. In either case the resulting cost can be enormous. A typical ten hour restore from backup could cost millions of dollars, and cause serious harm to a company.
Moreover, inserting devices into a system could introduce contamination such as foreign data and even viruses. For example, in a system that enforces the WORM (Write Once Read Many) property on rewritable disks, allowing the disks to be removed and inserted back into the system could circumvent the enforcement of the WORM property and cause the system to become contaminated with rewritten data.