We were recently approached by Angus Hall from "Logical" and asked to put their new Hard Disk Sheriff system through its paces. We are currently using PC Lockout as our security software. The idea was to get a feel for how HDD Sheriff compared.
Our network is relatively unsophisticated. We have around 150 computers spread around the school connected to a central optic-fibre/switch/hub arrangement. We are using NT4 as our server, but we have not yet gone to individual user names and logons. In effect we have 150 stand-alone computers all connected together. This configuration is a nightmare to manage without some form of security to prevent idle hands from playing.
Hard Disk Sheriff (HDD Sheriff) combines a PCI card and software to ensure that any changes made to the system are reversed at start-up. Users can be allocated an area of the hard disk to save files. All other areas are protected by HDD Sheriff. As it happens users can still 'erase' files and move things around to their heart's content. Next time the system starts everything is back where it was! (It was magic to erase all sorts of files form the windows directory, restart the computer and sit back with our fingers crossed. It really worked!)
The Evaluation
As a 'Site Licensed' school PC Lockout now only costs us an annual $100 to keep up with the latest version and obtain all the support we need. We can install the software on every machine in the school without paying another cent. We are therefore an ideal target to provide an impartial evaluation of security products. PC Lockout has saved us hundreds of hours of maintenance time (probably thousands of hours actually). I find it hard to see how any school could survive without some sort of security against student tampering. HDD Sheriff would provide similar "Total Cost of Ownership" (TCO) savings as PC Lockout. At around $120 per system HDD Sheriff is more expensive than PC Lockout, but at least while we were using it, it showed none of the problems we sometimes encounter with PC Lockout. HDD Sheriff appeared to load faster than PC Lockout. Unlike PC Lockout no additional passwords are required from boot-up unless the administrator needs to make changes.
The actual 'evaluation' consisted of leaving the system set up and available for student use. Based on past experience with unprotected systems it would have lasted about a week before it would have new screen savers, re-arranged desktop, a new colour scheme, etc. It just continued to operate without causing any problems at all! It was easy to forget we were supposed to be evaluating it.
Conclusions
At around $120 per system for HDD Sheriff and $500 for a 'base' license for PC Lockout (and then around $5 per machine) the TCO crossover is around 4, or 5 machines. If that's all you have, HDD Sheriff is definitely the way to go. Schools with larger numbers of machines will need to do the economics for themselves. PC Lockout has a few little idiosyncrasies. It does not like some hardware and software configurations. HDD Sheriff appears to be compatible all systems. PC Lockout has a higher management overhead than HDD Sheriff, particularly when installing new software.
For the Technocrats …
HDD Sheriff manages the FAT and partitions the hard disk. It also makes a compressed 'image' of the disk. The image appears to take up a maximum of 10% of the available disk space. The user can do whatever they like to the hard disk. When the system restarts the image is restored just as it was before those little fingers went to work. As an added bonus, any viruses installed when in user mode will also disappear at restart. Machines protected by HDD Sheriff would have been as clean as a whistle when restarted after the recent "I LOVE YOU" virus scare - at ZERO cost!
When you're alone out there in the West, everyone needs a sheriff.