Data integrity validation using host write counts in Solid State Drive (SSD) in digital forensic investigation.

Solid-state drives (SSD) are currently replacing hard disc drives (HDD) in most computing systems. In terms of performance, SSDs have proven to be superior to HDDs, which has increased the need for SSDs to replace HDDs. However, SSD design is not forensically sound because data integrity is questionable. Due to TRIM, Garbage Collection, and Wear Leveling, the data in SSD constantly changes, causing problems with data integrity validation in digital forensics. Validation of data integrity using hash algorithms is essential for proving the authenticity of evidence collected from a suspect system. To explain this issue, an experiment has been conducted to collect the data while on an active as well as idle state of SSD to analyze the write count parameters of SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) as well as the power on count parameter to determine the data integrity that can assist in digital forensic investigation process.