Question

a digital forensics firm has been tasked by the court with conducting a physical acquisition of five 22 tb hdds for an investigation. the digital forensics firm has a drive acquisition machine capable of running the physical acquisition of five hard drives concurrently, with 6 gbps of bandwidth per drive. assuming that the acquisition process does not experience any errors, how many consecutive hours (rounded up to the nearest whole hour) at minimum should an examiner of the firm allocate toward the supervision of the acquisition process?
a. 9 hours
b. 18 hours
c. 27 hours
d. 36 hours

Explanation:

Step1: Convert TB to bits

First, convert 22 TB to bits. Note that 1 TB = $2^{40}$ bytes, 1 byte = 8 bits.
$$22 \times 2^{40} \times 8 = 22 \times 2^{43} \text{ bits}$$

Step2: Convert bandwidth to bits per hour

Convert 6 Gbps (gigabits per second) to bits per hour. 1 Gbps = $10^9$ bits/second, 1 hour = 3600 seconds.
$$6 \times 10^9 \times 3600 = 2.16 \times 10^{13} \text{ bits/hour}$$

Step3: Calculate time per drive

Divide total bits of one drive by bandwidth per hour to get time for one drive.
$$\frac{22 \times 2^{43}}{2.16 \times 10^{13}}$$
Calculate $2^{43} = 8796093022208$, so:
$$\frac{22 \times 8796093022208}{2.16 \times 10^{13}} = \frac{193514046488576}{2.16 \times 10^{13}} \approx 8.96 \text{ hours}$$

Step4: Round up to whole hour

Since drives are acquired concurrently, the total time equals the time for one drive. Round up 8.96 to the nearest whole hour.

$$\lceil 8.96 ceil = 9$$

Answer:

a. 9 hours