R&D: Deep Note, Can Acoustic Interference Damage Availability of Hard Disk Storage in Underwater Data Centers?

ACM Digital Library has published, in HotStorage ’23: Proceedings of the 15th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, an article written by Jennifer Sheldon, Weidong Zhu, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA, Adnan Abdullah, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA, Kevin Butler, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA, Md Jahidul Islam, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA, and Sara Rampazzi, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Abstract: “The growing worldwide attention toward large-scale subsea data centers has garnered substantial interest from commercial entities which have built and deployed underwater prototypes since 2015. These data centers utilize hard disk drives (HDDs) as a cost-effective method of data storage. However, researchers have demonstrated that acoustic waves can affect the availability and integrity of HDDs and applications that rely on them. These studies are all conducted in air on commercial laptops, hence their applicability and implications in submerged environments remain unexplored. In this position paper, we investigate potential vulnerabilities of storage devices deployed in underwater data centers and subsea storage platforms against targeted acoustic attacks. Based on our initial investigation of a simplified scenario, a victim HDD deployed in an enclosed submerged container is especially vulnerable to those acoustic attacks, which at frequencies ranging from 300Hz 1300Hz can result in up to 100% throughput loss and application crashes. Based on these findings, we argue that further study is necessary to assess underwater storage system security and develop effective defenses against overlooked acoustic attacks.“