User guide

ezRAID3 Manager GUI Version 1.0
10 Drive Locking
Overview (not implemented yet)
The Drive Locking feature allows you to protect the contents of all of the hard drives that are
connected to your SteelVine Storage Reference Design. By entering a password that you
define, you can prevent any unauthorized users from accessing your data. The Drive
Locking features uses industry-standard ATA Security commands that are supported by most
hard disk drive manufacturers, so you should be able to use this feature with most
commercially available drives. If any of your hard disk drives do not support those industry-
standard ATA security commands, the Drive Locking feature cannot be used, and your drives
will remain unlocked.
The hard disk drive security is initially disabled, so all of your hard disk drives are unlocked
until you enter a password to enable security and lock the drives. When you enter your
password to enable this security feature, all of the hard drives that are attached to your
SteelVine Storage Reference Design become locked, including any hard drives that are
connected to subordinate nodes within a cascaded configuration. Once the hard drives are
locked, all of the data stored on those hard drives will become inaccessible until you re-enter
the same password to unlock the drives. To unlock the hard drives, you must enter the same
password that was used to lock them, and all data will be accessible while the drives are
powered-on. If you unplug the hard drives or power-off your SteelVine Storage Reference
Design, all of the hard drives will revert to a locked state. If you ever forget the password
that was used to lock the hard drives, there is no way to recover your data. In that case, the
only way to continue using the hard drives is to erase all of the data that was stored and
protected, using the “
Secure Erase and Unlock Drives” action. If you no longer wish to use
the security feature, you can disable it. Once the security feature has been disabled, you can
only re-enable it by entering and re-entering a password, although the drives must be
unlocked before you can disable security.
The configuration and management of the Drive Locking feature is performed through the
Drive Locking dialog.
Note: This chapter pertains to the SiI5744, SiI5734 and SiI5723. The SiI5733 performs Automatic
drive locking using a random and unique password that is pre-programmed inside the chip, so none
of the dialogs described will appear when the SiI5733 is present.
Accessing the Drive Locking Dialog
Use the following procedure to enable the security feature and lock all of the hard drives.
1. Click on the
Drive Locking icon along the top of the SteelVine Manager Status
Window or select the Drive Locking item from the Edit menu pull-down list.
ezRAID3 RAID Manager User's Guide
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