Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Review, Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects

The Seagate Backup Plus Fast portable drive is performance-heavy mobile device that provides users a plethora of storage and is the first portable drive that offers 4TB of storage space. Backup plus Fast is fully USB powered, allowing users to bring along their videos, music, and pictures without having to carry an extra external power supply while on the go. Also included is the Seagate Dashboard, which offers users the ability to schedule and automate backups for their computer, social networks and mobile devices.

Seagate’s website claims that their Backup Plus mobile drive boasts up to twice the speed of other portable hard drives fast USB 3.0 interface with its transfer speeds up to 220MB/s. Those are extremely good numbers, especially compared to other portable consumer drives such as the LaCie Rugged and G-Technology G-DRIVE that are limited to a single hard drive inside. So how does Seagate’s new drive reach this performance level? Well, the device actually contains two 2TB 9.5mm Samsung drives in RAID0 (striped) to account for both the speed and 4TB capacity. The Samsung drives have appeared in Samsung branded externals prior, but Backup Plus Fast is the first product to leverage the drives in this creative way.

Buyers would consider Google, Amazon for insurance needs

Also available in conjunction with the drive is a free Seagate Mobile Backup app for the iOS and Android mobile devices. The app allows users to back up all of their content to the drive, when on the same network, or to the cloud when on the go. Additionally, users can use the Save and Share features to download and upload content from social network sites such as Facebook and Flickr. To make sharing the drive between multiple systems more convenient, when the pre-loaded NTFS driver is installed on the on a Mac, Backup plus Fast can be used between Windows and Mac computers without having to reformat the drive.

The Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable 4TB is shipping now with a street price of $269.99 and is backed by a limited 3-year warranty.

Specifications

·        Capacity: 4TB (STDA4000100)

·        Performance: 220MB/s

·        Product Colors: Black

·        Length: 116.90mm

·        Width: 82.50mm

·        Typical Weight: 0.307kg

·        Seagate Dashboard pre-loaded on drive

·        Contents

·        18-inch USB 3.0 cable

·        USB 3.0 Y-cable

·        Quick start guide

·        Warranty: 3-year limited

Design and build

As is the case with many Seagate devices, the Backup Plus has a simple design with the company logo on the bottom corner. Its smooth metal enclosure (top and bottom covers, middle section is plastic) helps resist scratches and fingerprints and easily fits into a laptop bag or backpack. The side end of the drive houses the USB 3.0 connector port and the top cover has a small drive activity light.

Overall, the Backup Plus is well built; but is not user accessible, which is not uncommon for portable drives. If a drive fails, the user will have to RMA the entire thing since they can’t swap one drive on their own without damaging the enclosure. Opening up the drive exposed two Samsung 2TB M9T hard drives connected through a dual-SATA to USB 3.0 adapter.

Usability

The Seagate Dashboard is included with the entire Backup Plus family, and with it users are able to have a simple, streamlined method of ensuring that all of their content is backed up. Overall, we find the Seagate Dashboard is very simple to use as it allowed us to easily protect, share and save data.

The Dashboard software is located on the Backup Plus drive itself, so there’s no need to download it. To install the Dashboard software on your computer, you simply have to double click the file (.dmg for Mac users, .exe for PC) and follow the onscreen instructions.

If you're using a Mac, you will eventually be asked to select whether you’ll be using your drive on the Mac, PC or both. If you select the only Mac option, the drive will reformat itself to integrate with Mac applications such as Time Machine.

After installing the software, users will see a very simply layed out dashboard with the connected drive listed on the left; we were impressed with its simplicity and easy navigation. The "Social" section allows users to log in to their account for each site and the backup up all of their images and videos; these can be initiated automatically. The Dashboard also allows users to share their photos and videos located on your Backup Plus drive directly to their Facebook, Flickr or YouTube accounts. This functionality worked seamlessly.

With the growing number images and videos stored on smartphones and tablets, backup is something that is becoming very important for these mobile devices. The "Mobile backup" section allows users to back up their movile devices that have the app installed on their phone. Additionally, once you set up the backup plan in a few quick steps, backing up your phone or tablet is automatic. iOS users can find it on iTunes while Android users can find it on the Play Store.

Performance

Using our Consumer Testing Platform, we measured 2MB sequential speeds. The Seagate Backup Plus clocked in at an impressive 237.2MB/s in the write column and 183.4MB/s for read activity. By comparison, the recently reviewed LaCie Fuel (USB 3.0) measured 98.3MB/s read and 109.1MB/s write. To approach Backup Plus Fast's performance numbers, we have to compare it to a DIY solution like the Newer Technology Guardian MAXimus Mini. The MAXimus Mini (RAID0) measured sequential speeds with an Hitachi 7K500 array of 213MB/s read and 213MB/s write. In aggregate, pretty similar performance, but the enclosure approach doesn't include the software or cloud features, though it does allow for physical drive management and optional RAID1 configuration.

When testing with 2MB random transfer speeds, the Seagate Backup Plus measured read and write speeds at 90.0MB/s and 135.8MB/s respectively. The LaCie Fuel measured read and write speeds at 71.2MB/s and 79.7MB/s respectively. The dual-drive fast again tops the performance table as expected.

It is worth noting that the Backup Plus Fast uses RAID0 to achieve it's high speeds and capacity, something that is not without risk. In a RAID0 environment, there is no parity of data, so if either drive fails, the entire RAID fails and data loss is certain. The drive then makes for an excellent backup target or media file repository, especially when combined with Seagate's software for cloud backup, but it should not be relied upon as a primary data storage volume for backup or files.

Conclusion

The Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable drive with USB 3.0 provides consumers with a very durable and fast 4TB mobile hard drive; it is also bus powered, meaning that users do not need to pack those pesky AC cords with them when they are on the go. Consumers working on the go will find that the Seagate Backup Plus fast especially useful due to its plethora of space and speedy write activity. Under the hood, the Seagate drive contains two 2TB drives in RAID0 to account for the speed and high capacity, giving it a substantial boost in performance. Using a RAID0 configuration comes at a cost, however, as it allows for total data loss if one of the two internal drives fail. Users should thus be wary of that fact and we recommend that users are backing up their data to something else on a regular basis or use Seagate’s cloud option and apps to backup. This all said, this is a common issue for most mobile drives so it's not too much of a surprise or hindrance.

One thing that we really found handy is that users can share and manage files between Windows and Mac computers without having reformat the drive; a very welcomed feature for users who cross-platform often (eg. work vs home). The included software bundle, which adds an app for mobile device backup too, is one of the more comprehensive available in the market today.

As far as performance goes, we measured 2MB sequential speeds at an impressive 237.2MB/s in the write column and 183.4MB/s for read activity, which is much higher than other premium mobile drives for only around $60 more. The extra 3TB of data, which is significantly more storage than most portable storage solutions, more than makes up for the slightly higher price for many users.

Appthority App Risk Management, Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects

Appthority App Risk Management provides service that employs static, dynamic and behavioral analysis to immediately discover the hidden actions of apps and empower organizations to apply custom policies to prevent unwanted app behaviors. Only Appthority combines the largest global database of analyzed public and private apps with advanced policy management tools to automate control over risky app actions and protect corporate data.

According to a recent Appthority blog post, the National Cyber Security Alliance recently promoted its internationally recognized annual holiday, Data Privacy Day. The theme of Data Privacy Day, “Respecting Privacy, Safeguarding Data, and Enabling Trust,” came just on the heels of new revelations from the N.S.A. around how they target mobile. The company indicated that the New York Times, the National Security Agency let it slip that they use mobile apps as a method to access personal information. These “leaky apps” such as the popular gaming app Angry Birds give away things such as smartphone identification codes and pinpointed locations throughout the day.

What are you willing to pay?

There is big data potential. The potential to transform health care but structural issues may pose obstacles. Privacy issues will continue to be a major concern. McKinsey estimates $300 billion to $450 billion in reduced health-care spending could be conservative, as many insights and innovations are still ahead. Training initiatives is great. EMarketer estimates that digital pharma US ad spending will reach $1.19 billion in 2013 and climb to $1.33 billion by 2016. This market has remained cautious in its investment strategies following regulations and standards.

Organizations objectives should reach results of quality risk management impacting the overall pharmaceutical quality system. The areas could be evaluated when implemented and also potential opportunities to improve could be identified. The companies that are successful today are collaborative, nimble, smaller and multidisciplinary. Applying compliance to these ecosystems is a priority. The traditional model is going away. Acquisitions of licensing is in a lot of momentum now.

C-Level and supporting senior management would make a significant impact on governance in Pharma. Controlling risk and regulations is a big issue for the industry. Emerging threats could be prevented with patience, time investment and allocating the right resources available. Compliance is a time consuming process.

Card Brands Launch Security Initiative, Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects

Ending weeks of relative silence by the two major payment card brands in the wake of payments breaches at Target Corp., Neiman Marcus and others retailers, MasterCard and Visa have announced the formation of a cross-industry group to work on improving U.S. payment security. The collaborative effort aims to advance the migration to chip cards as well as point-to-point encryption.

In addition to the card brands, the coalition will include banks of all sizes, credit unions, acquirers, retailers, point-of-sale device manufacturers and industry trade groups, the card brands say in announcing the effort.

"The recent high-profile breaches have served as a catalyst for much needed collaboration between the retail and financial services industry on the issue of payment security," says Ryan McInerney, president of Visa Inc. "As we have long said, no one industry or technology can solve the issue of payment system fraud on its own."

Top Priorities

The initial focus of the group will be on the adoption of payments cards using chip technology based on the EMV standard that's widely used in other nations. The cards offer greater security than magnetic-stripe cards that are now commonly used in the U.S.

Other areas of focus for the new group will include:

Promoting additional security solutions, including tokenization and point-to-point encryption. "While EMV addresses the physical point of sale, the need to protect mobile and online transactions is critical," the card brands say in their announcement. "In tokenization, the traditional account number will be replaced with a unique digital payment code, providing an additional layer of security."

Developing an actionable roadmap for security across all segments of the payments industry.

"One of the critical roles we play is to protect consumers and businesses against criminals and fraudsters," says Chris McWilton, president of North American markets for MasterCard. "Only through industry collaboration and cooperation will we address the real and immediate issue of security and maintain consumer confidence and trust. EMV will be the next step in these efforts, alongside enhanced security solutions for online and mobile channels."

The formation of the group, the card brands say, is an acknowledgement of the need for all parties involved in the payments process to work together and will "ensure all voices can contribute to the strategic direction of payment security."

MasterCard and Visa also expect the new group to engage with other ongoing security efforts, including proprietary risk councils, EMV task forces and standards management bodies.

Assessing the Efforts

News of the card brands' focus on tokenization and point-to-point encryption is encouraging, says Gartner analyst Avivah Litan. The efforts could make a meaningful difference if standards are created for the technologies "so that one vendor's solution [is] interoperable with another," she says.

"These standards have been lacking in the market, and, as a result, especially with point-to-point encryption, retailers and card acceptors are somewhat hesitant to adopt the technology out of valid fear of vendor lock-in and the pricing and competitive disadvantages that go along with that," Litan says.

"Visa and MasterCard have had plenty of time to work on these standards," she says. "Let's see if they do something meaningful and actionable this time."

Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects, Is the cloud the next stop for enterprise risk management?

Could enterprise risk management become a common cloud-based service at most government agencies? It's an idea being explored by other industries, especially within the financial management and manufacturing sectors. There's a good chance that the idea could take root in the public sector too.

Once an organization assesses its potential safety and economic risks, specific rules can be then be set to help mitigate those risks. Historically organizations have not always taken an enterprise wide approach to risk management. More often solutions were done piecemeal, such as requiring locks on certain doors or passwords on specific machines. As risk management became more formalized, it slowly became an evaluation process to be followed, a set of formal decisions to be made and a way to track and enforce specific rules.

A risk-management system often is used not only to track risk but to document decisions made on how the risk should be addressed. This system can include coordinating resources to minimize risk, monitoring risk-related activity, and managing the short- or long-term impact of known risks.

Such systems fall under the general heading of governance, risk and compliance (GRC), and many government agencies already have systems in place to help them manage their approach to risk. The key word here, though, is "systems" (plural). Agencies can find it difficult to integrate a truly enterprisewide view of how risk is managed. Too often GRC systems have been built ad-hoc at the sub-agency level to deal with local issues.

Further, government has unique needs. Risk management is not the same for government as it is for an insurance company that is working to manage risk and assure profits across thousands of insurance policies and investments. Government also tends to focus heavily on risk associated with project management. Getting program or project governance properly aligned helps ensure success for the program itself, and it also reduces long-term risk from other internal and external factors.

There are popular GRC solutions available from enterprise software vendors such as Oracle and SAP. Some organizations have created their own customized risk-management solutions, and other companies have risk-management solutions that are targeted at a specific issue, such as compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act or the Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 12.

We've also seen compliance monitoring and enforcement systems that address data privacy, cyber-threat protection, configuration management rules and monitoring as well as network monitoring. The Federal CIO Council even mentioned these types of systems as leading priorities for 2014. Individual government lines of business are influencing an ever greater number of investment decisions related to GRC initiatives.

So there's a critical mass of interest in these types of solutions. That’s because agencies are under pressure to take an enterprisewide approach to GRC. They need to upgrade systems in order to make that happen, and there are always new rules hitting them that affect what their risk-management systems must track. In fact, big data and analytics draw the most attention for risk and innovation, and both are key expansion areas for government agencies. Meanwhile, we have an increasingly mobile workforce and onset of new cyber threats. Thus, security and risk has become a key government business function that relies on technology as a cornerstone to its success.

Cloud-based GRC solutions are a logical step for agencies that need to address new rules, consolidate systems and serve their mobile workforce. Most enterprise software vendors offer cloud-hosted versions of their risk management solutions, and it's worth talking to them to see if this is a logical place for an agency to migrate.

Government can offer help too. Last year the National Institute of Standards and Technology published a Draft Cloud Computing Security Document that introduced a "cloud-adapted Risk-Management Framework for applications and/or services migrated to the cloud." Back in 2010 NIST also established a guide for applying the Risk-Management Framework to federal IT systems. GSA also offers a set of solutions under a blanket purchase agreement related to Risk-Management Framework and associated services (though it's not clear how much of this is available via cloud.)

Safety products: Web-based driver risk management, Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects

Utility vehicles: Alert Driving, a provider of web-based driver risk management solutions, has announced the launch of Hazard Perception 360, an interactive mobile driver risk assessment solution. The new release builds on Alert Driving’s proven, industry-standard Hazard Perception Evaluation program.

Hazard Perception Evaluation is designed to identify high-risk drivers by assessing their risk awareness and reaction time across six core safe driving categories. Based on each individual’s specific deficiencies, the program assigns targeted training to mitigate a driver’s assessed risk.

The advancements made with Hazard Perception 360 include:

•             A web-based, mobile application that does not require a company to download an app to launch the program;

•             A 45% larger clickable, interactive area; and

•             An enhanced driver scoring algorithm that more accurately pinpoints a driver’s deficiencies and risk rating.

“AlertDriving was the first company in the marketplace to bring the Hazard Perception Evaluation to fleets,” said Matthew Latreille, Vice President of Digital Marketing and Innovation at AlertDriving. “The fact that AlertDriving can deliver this highly interactive solution to mobile devices without the hassle of app stores or installations makes for a seamless program launch.”

The initial release of Hazard Perception 360 is customized specifically for iPad users and available in nine countries, including; the United States, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Argentina, Brazil, Philippines, Czech, Italy, and Russia. Further expansion to additional countries will occur throughout 2014 with new versions for other tablets such as the Samsung GalaxyTab and Google Nexus coming on stream during the same timeframe.

“With the ever-increasing use of mobile technology and growing mobile workforce, there needs to be a change in the way training is delivered to drivers,” said Rob Martin, Vice President of Sales at AlertDriving. “We’re at the forefront of this change, with Hazard Perception 360 allowing companies to bring the training to the drivers wherever they are,” Rob Martin continued. “This results in a seamless delivery of the training, increased productivity for employees and ultimately a reduction in collisions, personal injuries, and financial cost on the road.”

Established in 1998, AlertDriving pioneered web-based driver risk management and has trained over 1,200,000 drivers worldwide. The company’s fully customizable, driver risk management platform, has helped clients significantly reduce their collisions, injuries, costs and liability exposure.

Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects Cartoon: the climate contrarian guide to managing risk

A new cartoon created by John Cook illustrates the failure of climate contrarians to manage global warming risks

Climate contrarians want us to bet everything on the best case global warming scenario. That's a failure of basic risk management. Photograph: Erik De Castro/Reuters

Climate change is fundamentally a risk management problem. Whether or not you agree with the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming, there is an undeniable risk that the consensus is correct and that we're causing dangerously rapid climate change.

Frequently, climate contrarians argue against taking action to mitigate that risk by claiming the uncertainties are too large. One of the most visible figures to make this argument is climate scientist Judith Curry, who said in 2013,

"I can't say myself that [doing nothing] isn't the best solution."

This argument represents a failure to grasp the principles of basic risk management, as illustrated in the following cartoon.

The climate contrarian guide to managing risk. Created by John Cook

When it comes to managing risk, uncertainty is not our friend. Uncertainty means it's possible the outcome will be better than we expect, but it's also possible it will be much worse than we expect. In fact, continuing with business-as-usual would only be a reasonable option in the absolute best case scenario.

Doing nothing is betting the farm on a very low probability scenario.  It's an incredibly high-risk path that fails to reduce the threats posed by the worst case or even most likely case scenarios. This is a concept Judith Curry understood in 2007, when she wrote,

"The rationale for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is to reduce the risk of the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. Making the transition to cleaner fuels has the added benefit of reducing the impact on public health and ecosystems and improving energy security ... I have yet to see any option that is worse than ignoring the risk of global warming and doing nothing."

Judith Curry of 2007 got it exactly right. Unfortunately she and her fellow climate contrarians no longer seem to grasp these fundamental principles of risk management.

Failing to mitigate global warming by significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions is fundamentally equivalent to continuing to smoke cigarettes, driving without a seat belt, or refusing to buy homeowner's insurance. Each situation represents the failure to take action to reduce the risks of a very dangerous outcome.

Even if you personally have doubts about the 97 percent expert consensus on human-caused global warming and the threats it represents, there's a good chance you're wrong. You may also doubt the medical science consensus that smoking causes lung cancer, but acting on that doubt by continuing to smoke is a risky decision. The difference is that in the latter case, you're only risking the health of yourself and those in your proximity. In the case of global warming, you're risking the health of entire ecosystems and future generations.

From a risk management perspective, mitigating the undeniable threat of catastrophic climate change is a no-brainer. So let's stop delaying and denying and get to it.

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Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects

Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks (defined in ISO 31000 as the effect of uncertainty on objectives, whether positive or negative) followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. Risks can come from uncertainty in financial markets, threats from project failures (at any phase in design, development, production, or sustainment life-cycles), legal liabilities, credit risk, accidents, natural causes and disasters as well as deliberate attack from an adversary, or events of uncertain or unpredictable root-cause. Several risk management standards have been developed including the Project Management Institute, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, actuarial societies, and ISO standards.

Methods, definitions and goals vary widely according to whether the risk management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety.

The strategies to manage threats (uncertainties with negative consequences) typically include transferring the threat to another party, avoiding the threat, reducing the negative effect or probability of the threat, or even accepting some or all of the potential or actual consequences of a particular threat, and the opposites for opportunities (uncertain future states with benefits).

Certain aspects of many of the risk management standards have come under criticism for having no measurable improvement on risk, whether the confidence in estimates and decisions seem to increase. For example, it has been shown that one in six IT projects becomes a 'Black Swan', with cost overruns of 200% on average, and schedule overruns of 70%.

Introduction

A widely used vocabulary for risk management is defined by ISO Guide 73, "Risk management. Vocabulary."

In ideal risk management, a prioritization process is followed whereby the risks with the greatest loss (or impact) and the greatest probability of occurring are handled first, and risks with lower probability of occurrence and lower loss are handled in descending order. In practice the process of assessing overall risk can be difficult, and balancing resources used to mitigate between risks with a high probability of occurrence but lower loss versus a risk with high loss but lower probability of occurrence can often be mishandled.

Intangible risk management identifies a new type of a risk that has a 100% probability of occurring but is ignored by the organization due to a lack of identification ability. For example, when deficient knowledge is applied to a situation, a knowledge risk materializes. Relationship risk appears when ineffective collaboration occurs. Process-engagement risk may be an issue when ineffective operational procedures are applied. These risks directly reduce the productivity of knowledge workers, decrease cost-effectiveness, profitability, service, quality, reputation, brand value, and earnings quality. Intangible risk management allows risk management to create immediate value from the identification and reduction of risks that reduce productivity.

Risk management also faces difficulties in allocating resources. This is the idea of opportunity cost. Resources spent on risk management could have been spent on more profitable activities. Again, ideal risk management minimizes spending (or manpower or other resources) and also minimizes the negative effects of risks.

Method

·         For the most part, these methods consist of the following elements, performed, more or less, in the following order.

·         identify, characterize threats

·         assess the vulnerability of critical assets to specific threats

·         determine the risk (i.e. the expected likelihood and consequences of specific types of attacks on specific assets)

·         identify ways to reduce those risks

·         prioritize risk reduction measures based on a strategy

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