Data security is an important if not always achievable goal for military electronics systems. Those systems are acquiring large amounts of data from multiple sensors simultaneously, at rates sometimes exceeding 30 GB/s. With flash memory as the only practical permanent storage media, solid state drives (SSDs) are now a common system-level component in military systems. System-level designers may specify low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) SSDs to store data in military systems, but are often challenged with providing enough data security in the final system.
As low-cost data storage solutions, COTS SSDs may represent budget savers for advanced military electronics systems. But they then fail to meet nearly all of the performance criteria required by the other electronic components in the system: predictable performance under stressful operating conditions, physical ruggedization, long-term availability from a Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA)-accredited supply-chain partner, and trusted security. To avoid catastrophic consequences, security must be incorporated into a military-grade SSD from a system’s design phase—not “bolted-on” as an afterthought to a mass-market consumer data storage product.