Seagate, Dell, Hitachi Release Drives with Full Hardware Encryption

by admin November 10, 2008 at 6:46 pm

The number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who are releasing devices with full disk encryption (FDE) as a security measure is increasing, according to industry sources. On Monday, a partnership has been announced between Seagate and Dell to manufacture hard disks with FDE cryptoprocessor chips. A similar announcement will be made later this week independently by Hitachi, as well as by a third drive manufacturer.

FDE drives essentially do the same thing as software-based encryption solutions such as Bitlocker, but since they use an on-board cryptographic chip, such information such as a drive’s MBR can be encrypted as well. This is not possible with a software encryption method, FDE thus being more secure.

Read more: efluxmedia.com