SEC Compliance

SEC Rule 240.17a-4(f) is one of the many compliance regulations that currently make the lives of storage administrators interesting. The Securities and Exchange Commission rule, which was passed in the wake of the Enron and Tyco scandals and others - requires public companies to store certain data and business records, including some e-mail, on non-erasable and non-rewritable media.

To most people, "non-erasable" and "non-rewritable" means write-once optical disks. However, shortly after passing the rule, the SEC issued a clarification specifying that any kind of non-erasable and non-rewritable medium would work. This was a good thing, because magneto-optical WORM disks are more expensive options than tape or hard disks and also offer less capacity.