Equipment/Software-FRED and FTK

[L Snider]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking at possibly trying to get some of the things below. If you use them, would you recommend them? Not? Why?

FRED

Laptop or Desktop?
Can one hook up a 3 inch or 5 inch to FRED using something like the FC5025? How does that work with the system?

How do you work with older mac disks?

Can one only do an image? I didn't think it allowed for file by file copy...

It is pricey, but I can see how having the internal write blockers and the disk image created right there could be very handy and save time...

FTK

Do you use FTK Imager (Free)? It work well in my testing, anyone had any issues it couldn't deal with when using it for real processing? or annoying issues?

Do you use FTK (Forensic Toolkit-not free)...Recommend and why? Why not? I know it is pricey...
Have you let a researcher use this for access?

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.

Cheers

Lisa

Lisa Snider

Electronic Records Archivist
Harry Ransom Center
The University of Texas at Austin
P.O. Box 7219
Austin, Texas 78713-7219
P: 512-232-4616
www.hrc.utexas.edu

[Donald Mennerich]

Lisa, 

A FRED is just PC, beyond having an integrated write blocker, lots of bays, cpu and ram. It does not force you to work in any particular way. You can have a Kryoflux or FC5025 hooked up to it just as any other PC to work with floppy disks. I don't know what you mean by "file-by-file" copy, you can mount a a drive the same way as any other pc, the on-board write-blocker is not the only mode of access to the computer. 

If by FTK (free) you mean FTK Imager, the two programs are not alike. You still use the 'Free' part, the imager, even if you have FTK. There is an older 'free' version, v 1.8, but it is almost nothing like the current 5.0 release. I would not compare either to the full version. 

Don

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[L Snider]

Hi Don,

Thanks for clarifying that with FRED. When I read their information, it sounded like one 'had to' do disk images-which confused me because I thought it worked like you said above.

Oh what I mean is if let's say a donor gives you a CD with 8 files and for some weird reason you can only archive 6 of them (due to the donor saying that)..or if the donor won't agree to a full disk image (due to deleted files, etc.) then copies of individual files or folders could be made. Although, I suspect that making the disk image and then deleting things from it would work even better, depending on the circumstance (and software you have to work with).

Yes FTK Imager and FTK are different. FTK looks powerful and has Quick View built in I believe, so one could give access that way if need be...

Thanks so much!

Cheers

Lisa

[Simon Spero]

If you are looking for a write-blocked solution for cd and other optical media, I can suggest some less expensive options. :-)

FRED is a  bit pricey, but you get everything pre-assembled so there's only one number to call if it doesn't work.

For a given budget you may be giving up on a better  GPGPU or other accelerator, or a bigger SSD for staging

By preference I would rather have a linux host and windows guests when needed. Maybe there's a market need for pre-built Kamstations.

Simon

[L Snider]

Hi Simon,

FRED is definitely pricey ;)

So would you dual boot or do it through a VM?

Cheers

Lisa

[Porter Olsen]

Hi Lisa,
I think Don and Simon answer most of your questions, but you may find my blog post on building a digital curation workstation helpful as well (link below). While the FRED is an impressive piece of hardware, as Don mentioned, it's ultimately just a PC. If the collections you're working with don't include a significant number of hard drives, you may be better served spending your hardware/software dollars elsewhere. However, if you ARE working with a large number of hard drives, then the FRED is definitely worth considering, both because of its speed and because it you can hot swap drives to process them even more quickly.

http://www.bitcurator.net/2013/08/02/building-a-digital-curation-workstation-with-bitcurator-update/

I don't address the Kryoflux in my blog post b/c I'm trying to keep things under a certain dollar amount, but it's worth considering b/c it doesn't care about the filesystem, just the bits. Great review/overview of the Kryoflux here: http://goughlui.com/?p=2852

Porter

[L Snider]

Hi Porter,

Thanks for that information. I do have many hard drives, but I am still not sure FRED is the right choice because I don't work with hundreds of them. However, as we go forward I will get in many more hard drives, flash drives, etc...I always try to look down the road with the equipment as well, as long as I can see it going 4-5 years (in terms of keeping up with new media).

I am still mulling it over...I have a lot of equipment to play with (I am lucky to have a very good stock pile), and was sizing up FRED to see if it might be easier, quicker, etc.

Yes, I was looking at Kryflux as well. I have wanted to get my hands on it for a while :)

Thanks again!

Lisa

[Christie Peterson]

Hi Lisa,

I just went through this whole decision process myself this summer. The short version is that we ended up with a FRED with a RAID, FTK, and some additional peripherals, including a KryoFlux, for processing legacy media. Yes, it was expensive, but surprisingly, a FRED is not hugely more than a PC if you really try to match it in terms of all the processing power and storage. 

For us, the deciding factors were that we had limited tech support in-house (so having something that worked well basically out-of-the-box and that had strong external support was important), we wanted to run FTK (again, because of limited internal tech support and staff time to dedicate, we didn't think using an open source product was the right choice for us at this time), and we needed something that had enough space in the chassis to accommodate an UltraBay write blocker along with multiple optical drives. I worked with my library's systems engineer to try to design a Dell (who is our supplier for PCs) that met our requirements, but we couldn't do it completely and the closest we came spec'd out at only about $1,500 less than a FRED with a RAID.

I'd be happy to answer any additional questions you might have, but please know that I'm out on leave through January and I'm not checking email every day, so my responses may be slightly delayed.

Best,

Christie Peterson

[L Snider]

Hi Christie,

Thanks for sharing that information. Tech support is a huge factor in things, and makes one's decisions easy or hard!

Interesting about it coming out close to a designed one.

Thanks again,

Lisa

[Alexander Duryee]

Christie,

Do you have a general list of the drives/non-FRED software/peripherals you selected for your workstation?

Thanks,

--Alex

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Alex Duryee

AudioVisual Preservation Solutions
350 7th Ave., Suite 1605
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office: 917-475-9630

http://www.avpreserve.com

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[Donald Mennerich]

Alex, 

I just had to compile a list of software on our FRED. Here's what I've installed on top of the FRED's w7 image. 

Immunet	antivirus
PGAdminIII	database
Basilisk II	emulation
DosBox	emulation
Sheepshaver	emulation
VirtualBox	emulation
WinUAE	emulation
WinVICE	emulation
QuickViewPlus	file viewing
FTK	forensics
FTK Imager	forensics
Hex Workshop	forensics
PRTK	forensics
Sleuthkit	forensics
FC 5025 Imager	imaging
ISO Buster	imaging
KryoFlux Imager	imaging
VLC	media
MediaInfo	metadata
OxygenXML	metadata
Photo Mechanic 5	metadata
Microsoft Office	office suite
OpenOffice	office suite
WordPerfect X6	office suite
TrueCrypt	security
7zip Manager	utility
FileZilla	utility
ImageMagick	utility

d