FORTASA BLOG

CompactFlash Write Protect Switch and Protection Zones - Benefits Gaming Customer

CompactFlash Card with Write Protect Switch

Recently a gaming OEM customer has contacted Fortasa to investigate and evaluate our CompactFlash card solution for their Video Poker Machine. What attracted this customer was the specific features we offered that were very beneficial to the application:

Write Protect Switch

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Device Serialization Makes Fortasa Flash Cards and SSDs More Secure

Many of our industrial and military customers have a high level of interest to protect the critical information that is stored on their SSD or Flash card. A typical solution is to purchase a shrink wrap Encryption software application package that will encrypt the stored data. This level of encryption uses only the private key (password) to encrypt the stored files.The encrypted files can be copied and drives duplicated, but regardless of the storage medium the files will only be decrypted and useful to the owner of the encryption key.

Secure Encrypted Files

This solution works well as long as the private key is not publicly shared. If, however, the encryption key is released in the public domain, the SSD can be easily duplicated, files decrypted and easily shared.

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Industrial Flash SSD Economics - Premium Value for the Higher Quality

Fortasa Industrial SSD Product Family

Frequently our embedded customers compare our Industrial Grade Flash Card, SSD and other storage products with the consumer grade devices typically found on Amazon, or other retail or e-tail sites. The discrepancy in product cost between the Industrial Grade Flash and its consumer brethren is amazingly wide. Considering that every card, whether Industrial or Consumer, has to have a connector, PCB, Flash Controller and NAND Flash component, they are often dumbfounded as to the such sizable price difference.

Given the lack of transparency, I wanted to elaborate on the economics of building an Industrial vs. a Consumer Flash card and the reason for substantial cost difference.

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CompactFlash Memory Card Interface Modes and Capabilities

Fortasa CompactFlash Card and SATA Adapter

CompactFlash memory cards have been a preferred storage device in many of embedded application. Developers appreciate the compact physical size, high performance interface, environment robustness and ability to easily remove the device even during system operation. Most often the CompactFlash memory card is used as a direct replacement of a conventional magnetic Hard Disk Drive.

Most conventional operating systems, such as Windows or Unix/Linux, have standard device drivers that recognize CompactFlash cards as a HDD and enable transparent interface to the card. This handshaking is performed by the system device driver that reads the CompactFlash card's Device ID table to recognize the Flash card capability and sets up an appropriate level of interface to the card.

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