Lake Forest, CA — July, 2015 — Nexcopy Inc. introduces a new software suite which supports data locking content to secure digital media. The software function supports both full-size Secure Digital card media and microSD card media. The data locking feature will turn the SD card into a read-only card so data cannot be deleted or formatted off the device.

Write Protection for SD Card: Why It Matters

As data security becomes increasingly critical, write protection for SD cards is a key feature that prevents unauthorized data modification or deletion. Nexcopy’s new software and duplicator hardware empower users to permanently lock content at the controller level—making it impossible to erase, overwrite, or format the card’s data.

Write protecting, or data locking content to flash memory is an important security feature. With the Nexcopy software and duplicator, data can be copied to the memory card and as a final step the device will be write protected at the controller level. Performing the data lock at the controller level blocks any third party from manipulating, hacking or tampering with the original content.

With the Nexcopy duplication software and hardware solution, a content owner has the following benefits:

• Protect bootable operating systems which run from SD cards
• Block viruses or malware from being transferred to the memory device
• Eliminate users from deleting or formatting content off the SD card

“Several of our customers with global data distribution requirements asked for this feature,” says Greg Morris, President of Nexcopy Inc. “The ability to write protect Secure Digital media was the added security measure they required, and we delivered.” Morris continues, “In addition, I am happy to announce current Nexcopy customers with SD Duplicators will also benefit from our updated duplication software.”

With optical drives disappearing from laptops, netbooks, and most tower-styled computers, the requirement to disseminate information via flash memory is becoming more popular now than ever. As content owners make their data available on flash memory, there is an added responsibility to ensure the memory is secure from malware and viruses. One way to prevent suspicious files from “jumping” onto the memory is making the flash memory write protected (or read-only). Using read-only Secure Digital media is a dual benefit because files cannot be added to the card and files cannot be removed from the card.

The software suite is compatible with the PC-based SD200PC duplicator and microSD200PC duplicator by Nexcopy. The two SD duplicator models are twenty target systems and require a Windows host PC to run. The write protection is performed at the controller level. It is not the mechanical switch found on the outside of Secure Digital media. This means the write protection setting done by the Nexcopy duplication software is the most secure method to make SD and microSD media read only.

Nexcopy’s complete line of USB Duplicators, CF Duplicators, SD Duplicators, and microSD Duplicators are available through a worldwide network of authorized resellers.

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About

Nexcopy Incorporated specializes in developing and manufacturing the finest and most feature-rich flash memory duplicators in the market. Pioneering the solid-state memory duplication market, Nexcopy supplies Central and South America, Europe, India, Asia, Pacific Rim and serves the U.S. market through its U.S. headquarters at: 13 Orchard Road Suite 102, Lake Forest, CA 92630.

How long does a USB flash drive last?

Longevity of USB Flash and Wear Leveling we think is a serious concern and have received this question many times.  Some say the number is 1,000 writes – some say the number is 100,000 writes.  One thing I do know for sure, it’s impossible to tell on any one specific device.  The life cycle of a USB is directly related to the flash memory…and from model to model or style to style, who knows what quality of flash is used.  With that said, we can still explain the theory behind making USB drives last longer.  For the most part it boils down to several elements  A)  the memory type and quality and B) the wear leveling technique.

As a quick summary the NAND flash in USB can be either SLC, MLC or TLC (single cell, multi-layer cell or triple-layer cell memory). Typically you will find MLC and now mostly TLC in USB sticks. SLC can be found but typically on the very high-end devices.

Wear leveling is a technique to prolong the life of the erasable flash memory. To summarize, flash memory has individual, erasable segments that can be set as zeros or ones (set as either positive or negative charge). However, after a certain number of erase and write cycles the segment (cell) becomes too unstable for reliable use.

Wear leveling is the algorithm used by the controller on the device which attempts to arrange the erase and writes evenly across the flash medium. Typically flash can have a cycle between 3,000 and 5,000 erase/writes. In addition to the usable area, the flash also has some cells with specific blocks for extended life which can handle up to 100,000 writes. This is the area where the controller makes note of the segments previously used and maps out the next best cells to use during an erase/write cycle.

There are three types of wear leveling.

No wear leveling – A Flash memory storage system with no wear leveling will not last very long if it is writing data to the flash. Without wear leveling, the Flash controller must permanently assign the logical addresses from the host computer to the physical addresses of the Flash memory. This means that every write to a previously written block must first be read, erased, modified, and re-written to the same location. This is very time consuming and highly written locations will wear out quickly with other locations even being completely unused. Once a few blocks reach their end of life the drive is no longer operable.

Dynamic wear leveling

The first developed type of leveling is called dynamic wear leveling and it uses a map to link logical block addresses from the host to the physical Flash memory. Each time the host writes replacement data, the map is updated so the original physical block is marked as invalid data, and a new block is linked to that map entry. Each time a block of data is re-written to the Flash memory it is written to a new location.

Static wear leveling

The other type of wear leveling is called static wear leveling which also uses a map to link the block addresses to physical memory addresses. Static wear leveling works the same as dynamic wear leveling except the static blocks that do not change are periodically moved so that these low-usage cells are able to be used by other data. This rotational effect of block addressing enables a USB or SSD to operate until most of the blocks are near their end of life.

The above are three types of wear leveling and there are three types of techniques used to extend the life of a USB drive.

Error correction

Code which is kept and logs bad blocks so they cannot be used again in future writes.

Pool reserve

Where if a write fails to a block it can be re-routed to the pool of reserved blocks and written there.

Track usage

Blocks on the media can be tracked in a least recently used queue of some sort. The data structures for the queue itself must be wear leveled as well as this queue information is constantly changing.

Source: Wikipedia and Nexcopy Inc. USB duplicator manufacturer.